Rachel Atherton and Danny Hart took victory at the 2015 British Cycling National Mountain Bike Downhill Championships in Llangollen on Sunday, beating off world-class competition from Manon Carpenter and Sam Dale respectively.
Current UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Downhill leader Atherton took her fourth consecutive senior championship women’s win by five seconds over Madison Saracen Factory Team’s Carpenter, with Katy Curd taking bronze a further two seconds adrift, in dusty conditions in North Wales.
The reigning champion later tweeted: “I love racing in the UK! Awesome weekend, rad track, rad course Marshalls! good weather,good people, good crowd, good result :-)”
2011 world champion Danny Hart had a closer run for the title in the senior championships men’s event, with just six tenths of a second separating him from silver medallist Sam Dale. Ruaridh Cunningham took bronze one-tenth of a second further back, with the top four separated by less than a second.
There were no surprises in the junior men’s event with Laurie Greenland, currently second in the world cup standings, beating Neil Stewart by over four seconds to take the title, with Frazer McCubbing close behind for bronze.
Cairngorm CC’s Elena Melton took the junior women’s title ahead of Aston Tutt and Rona Strivens.
