Asa Vermette at the Downhill National Championships Last Year

With his win of his first Elite Men’s Downhill World Cup race this past weekend in Korea, Asa Vermette is continuing to look like he’ll be one of the world’s biggest downhill stars for next few years.

Last summer, Mountain Bike Action went to the U.S. National Downhill Championship at Snow Summit in Big Bear Lake, California, to document the race action on the mountain.

One of the riders we were most eager to see was Asa Vermette, who had already begun beating the world’s top downhill riders as a junior on the World Cup circuit as well as in the Red Bull Hardline events.

Here are a few of our shots of Asa Vermette from last summer at Big Bear, California.

(Sorry about cutting off the top of Asa’s helmet in this last photo. Asa flew a little higher off this jump than MBA photographer John Ker was expecting.)

Here’s the profile we did on Asa and his bike when he was still a rising star: