Experience wins enduro and short track MTB
- 7 hours ago
- 2 min read
Experience proved decisive whether a short-track sprint or full-day enduro on the final day of the UCI Mountain Bike Championships in Rotorua.
Christchurch physiotherapist Mary Gray, who claimed Whaka 100 Marathon title last year, added the shortest of MTB titles, claiming the national short course victory on the final day of the championships in Rotorua.
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Gray edged out fellow Christchurch Singletrack Club rider Amelie Mackay and hometown Rotorua rider Ruby Ryan in the sprint finish to claim the Cycling New Zealand MTB Short Track Nationals on Sunday in Rotorua.
Christchurch star Anton Cooper, who won his 11th national XCO title on Saturday, was too strong to claim the short track honours from Auckland’s Matthew Wilson in a repeat of Saturday’s national championship.
The weekend of racing concluded with an exciting and challenging MTB Enduro Nationals which ran in combination with the Giant 2W Gravity Enduro run by the Rotorua MTB Club.
The championships comprised seven stages with the experienced Rae Morrison claiming the elite women’s honours by the narrowest of margins, while outstanding international prospect, Joe Millington from Rotorua dominated the elite men’s competition.
Exciting teenage downhill talent, Kate Hastings won the opening three stages with Hastings and Morrison recording the same time on the fourth stage.
Morrison, now a fulltime technical coach for the LIV Factory Downhill team, showed her experience to win penultimate stage to reduce the margin to just one second between the pair going into the final stage.
Morrison edged ahead in the final stage to claim the national title.
“It was such a good course, good variety, quite physical … just awesome,” said Morrison. ”This was so much fun. It was so cool having such a tight battle with Kate (Hastings) although early it was like 10 or 11 seconds behind and I knew I had to do better if I wanted any chance.”
The elite men’s competition seemed to be plain sailing for outstanding Rotorua prospect, Joe Millington.
After finishing 11th in the UCO Enduro World Series in Europe last year, Millington started strongly to win the opening four stages and open a 15-second advantage over Tauranga’s Asher Hart.
However Hart grabbed 10 seconds back on the fifth stage to close the margin, with Millington recovering to be fastest by stage six and both recorded the same time on the final sprint stage.
Millington, the Yeti NZ Development rider. claimed the honours by 11 seconds from Hart with Rotorua’s Daniel Self third a further 14 seconds back.
“I held it altogether over the first few stages – but then had a crash and a mechanical when I put my chain on wrong,” said Millington.
“The times got tight after that and I became a little nervous but managed to pull it back and go on to get the win. So I am pretty happy.
“I am pretty happy to finally do it and win the title and take the sleeve back to Europe.”