If Shurter beats Absolon it won’t be down to wheel size in my opinion, 650b doesn’t look to me like it would offer huge advantages over 26er wheels. The fittest guy will win as the course looks punishing in terms of climbing with little recovery time between each effort. 29er wheels might make a difference for some riders but we’ll see.
Darkcyan, will it be a tougher course than BigDog last weekend? I suspect it will be, the BigDog loop is pretty straightforward I think for your typical weekend even/racet rider, just made more difficult this year by weather conditions in the hours preceding the race. Although Hadleigh Farm is completely man made, I think some of those rock gardens etc probably take some nerve to ride on an XC race bike, particularly the speed those guys will be going.
Can’t see Killeen having any say in the medals, he’s just not good enough, a top ten finish would be a good result though. We’ve more chance of a medal from Annie Last on Saturday I think.