A deafening cheer ushered the first winner of Crankworx Rotorua 2019 across the dusty finish line on Tuesday night.

Local rider Keegan Wright blasted his way past legends and seasoned slalom masters, taking the win against Bas van Steenbergen (CAN) in the 100 percent Dual Slalom Rotorua.

'It's awesome to back it up from the 2017 Pump Track,” says Keegan, who first stormed onto the international scene two years ago, winning the Rotorua Pump Track Challenge presented by RockShox.

As Keegan was still fighting to catch his breath, Vaea Verbeeck (CAN) charged her way across the line, takin the Pro Women's win on both sides of the course against Anneke Beerten (NED).

The win marks a strong start to the season for Vaea, who wrapped 2018 in third place for the overall Queen of Crankworx title.

Over the course of the two final hours, Vaea successfully picked off Morgane Charre (FRA), Kialani Hines (USA) and Tahnee Seagrave (GBR), before lining up against Anneke in the finals.

As the dust settled, she described the feeling as ‘amazing, but unexpected'.

'I'm still trying really hard, and sometimes I can just blow it,” says the 28-year-old, who shifted her focus to Crankworx in 2018, branching out from her Downhill racing background.

'I definitely had a few drift moments out there. I feel like with experience you learn to be super clean, so I know I have a lot of work still to do. Today I think I had a lot of luck behind me, along with a lot of work. I did work for this. It's cool to see it come out as number 1.”

Like Vaea, to make his way to the final round Keegan had to battle his way past some heft competition, including Downhill legend Mick Hannah (AUS), Collin Hanson (USA), who took the win on the Whistler Pump Track last year, and Kyle Strait (USA), who finished his 2018 season with a Dual Slalom win in Whistler.

Lining up against Keegan in the semi-finals, Kyle didn't go down without a fight. Keegan and Kyle's first match up was a draw. With the crowd of more than 2000 spectators cheering him on, Keegan broke the tie, beating Kyle by a narrow margin of 0.07 in their second matchup, launching his way into the finals.

'The atmosphere out there was awesome and the track was good. It felt like every one was the hardest pedal of my life, but it's good training doing all that pedalling for the Enduro World Series,” says Keegan, who also raced this past weekend, coming in second in the New Zealand National Championships.

'I can't wait for the next five or six events coming up this week.”

The future-focus was echoed by Vaea.

'It's a good, positive start,” she says. 'It's definitely not putting my hopes up or anything. The next race is my favourite, so I want to make sure I do well at that. And then it's going to be really packed. I'm happy right now, but I'm going to go home with my head down and definitely focus on the next race.”

Vaea will take on the Rotorua Air DH presented by Bosch for Day Two of Crankworx Rotorua, then is set to take on the Official Oceania Whip-Off Championships presented by SPANK Thursday, followed by a double-header Fridays that starts with the Crankworx Rotorua Downhill presented by the Professionals and ends under the lights of the RockShox Rotorua Pump Track Challenge.

With a similarly packed schedule, Keegan will also take on the Air Dh, before rolling into Friday's Downhill and Pump Track, wrapping it all up with a bang on Sunday with the five stage Giant Toa Enduro presented by CamelBak, the first round of the Enduro World Series. .

The similarly packed schedules of the winners may be a sign of where each is setting their sights for the year ahead. Tuesday night offered up the first points for the 2019 battles for the titles of King and Queen of Crankworx. Considered to be the toughest competitions in mountain biking, each crown comes with a $20k bonus at the end of the season.

Keegan and Vaea take the lead after Day One, while also earning points toward the Crankworx Dual Slalom World Championships. The World Champion title will be awarded at the end of the season based on the results of all Dual Slalom competitions across the Crankworx World Tour.

2019's battles have begun. Next up? The Rotorua Air DH presented by Bosch challenges racers to hit 32 jumpable features while racing their way down Skyline Rotorua Gravity Park's Mr. Black.