After a surprise announcement that sent the individual Pro athletes to a winter recreational area on Friday and six more events, Saxon Panchik and Brittany Chestnut are the 2017 Granite Games champions.
Saxon Panchik looked in control the entire weekend with every event inside the top 10, including two event wins. Behind Panchik was another Panchik, Saxon’s twin brother Spencer.
Spencer’s only finish outside the top 10 was a 16th place finish on the first event, the 5.11 Trail Run. After that, Spencer won the Hill Sprint and continued a steady performance the rest of the way. Spencer held off Malachi Bennett to take 2nd overall. Bennett finished 3rd.
On the women’s side, Chestnut started strong on the 5.11 Trail Run and Hill Sprint finishing 2nd and 3rd, respectively, but after struggling on the Cycle event Friday afternoon, Chestnut had some ground to make up. She did just that, however, by finishing the last five events in the top 5 along with two 1st place finishes.
Chantelle Loehner was unable to catch Chestnut even though she finished every event in the top 10. Loehner just did not have enough top 3 finishes for grab those precious points at the top of the leaderboard.
Carolyne Prevost rounded out the podium, finishing 3rd. Brenda Castro came back after a slow start to take 7th overall.
