Soaring off of a killer 2024 season, her last one in the under-23 category, Emilly Johnston signed with global powerhouse team, Scott-SRAM. Flanked by some of the most iconic names in mountian biking, including team manager Thomas Frischknecht and teammate Nino Schurter, the Comox, B.C. racer launched into the wildly competitive elite women’s World Cup field.
We caught up with Johnston in her hometown to find out how the year went, talk about adjustment period to joining the elite ranks and, as she puts it, “getting chucked around in the back of the field,” during XCC races, after fighting for wins last year. We also talk moto, ‘cross, winter plans and what it’s like racing on a team with Nino Schurter during his retirement year.
CanadianMTB: Okay, so new year, new race category, new team, that’s a lot of changes to start 2025. Was there any adjustment period for any one of those?
Emilly Johnston: For sure. For me, the bike was super easy to get used to. And the team, it was the best environment that I could have ever asked for. It’s like a big family. But I definitely could feel that I put a lot more pressure on myself being on a bigger team, and I put more expectations on myself than I even realized. So I think throughout the year, I was definitely learning to manage and deal with that, which was something new.
CanadianMTB: Once racing started it looked like, from the outside, very solid results for your first year of elite World Cup racing. Is how the year went kind of what you were expecting? Did you, or the team, have specific goals at the start of the year?
EJ: I had goals for myself, which I think I actually set maybe a bit high. I kind of rode a bit below what I was hoping to this season, to be honest. But it was still a really solid year, with most of my rides being in the top 25. I’d hoped more in the top 20, and definitely will fight to be more consistently there next season.
CanadianMTB: One area where you were kind of public about admitting that it wasn’t doing as well as you wanted was in short track. But you were quite strong in short track that last year of U23. Was that a change for you, or was that just going from U23 to elite?
EJ: Yeah, I’m not actually sure, because I had really great short tracks last year. The year before, I’d really struggled with them, so I thought I’d crack the code. But I guess not. I think it’s really just the more aggressive style of racing, and in U23 I could get away with…
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