Australia’s 2025 GWM Mountain Bike National Championships might have began with sunshine and blue skies however ended with shortened races, pouring rain and wind gusts of over 100kph on Sunday, nevertheless, even the brutal climate situations and a nasty crash weren’t sufficient to blow Rebecca Henderson (Orbea Factory) off track.
“That was torture I hated each second of that,” stated Henderson within the submit race interview from a highlights bundle put out by AusCycling (see beneath). “I crashed within the first lap and I couldn’t shake Izzy and I used to be in a lot ache and by the top I couldn’t use my left arm. I’m not in a great way.”
That was clear from the pained expression on her face after she crossed the road forward of Flint, who was taking up the elite class for the primary time.
“Thank you Isabella Flint for that onerous battle and all the ladies that referred to as out whereas I used to be on the bottom and choosing myself up,” stated Henderson in an Instagram post.
“I assumed final yr was robust with my ankle,” she stated trying again on the 2024 version the place she rolled her ankle simply earlier than the occasion and needed to sit out the short-track. “This one actually takes the cake.
“On reflection I believe that was one in all my gutsiest efforts thus far and I’m in a bit of little bit of disbelief that I obtained it achieved.”
Henderson’s win will preserve her within the acquainted inexperienced and gold jersey as she strikes to new staff (Orbea Factory), with the rider additionally having claimed the short-track title on Friday. Zoe Cuthbert got here third within the elite ladies’s race on Sunday whereas Ella Menigoz claimed the U23 title.
It was additionally a well-recognized face on prime of the boys’s elite podium as 2023 winner Sam Fox, who made his solution to the occasion by bike-packing from Melbourne, took victory.
“The first one I labored my whole life for and it was the perfect kind I’d ever been in life,” Fox stated in an AusCycling media launch. “This feels a bit the alternative. I’d type of just lately retired, I haven’t been coaching, and I got here into this race with no expectations.
Fox crossed the road over a minute forward of second-placed Jack Ward (Team Brennan p/b TP32), who claimed the short-track title on Friday. To tackle the mountain bike championships the gifted 19-year-old sat out the second final spherical of the top-tier home highway collection, the ProVelo Super League, the place he’s the general chief.
Reece Tucknott was third within the males’s elite race on Sunday whereas Harry Doye (Trek Shimano) took the boys’s U23 title.