World Champion Buchanan dominates women's four cross

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In the rainbow jersey of world champion, Caroline Buchanan claimed her fifth Australian four cross title at the Australian Mountain Bike Championships at Eagle MTB Park in Adelaide on Friday. Luke Madill took the men's event.

It was the first outing in the rainbow jersey of world champion for the 19-year-old Buchanan. Starting as the outright favourite, she coped well with the pressure putting in an almost flawless ride.

The women's race was only ever a race of two as Sarsha Huntington challenged Buchanan through the first two berms as they rubbed shoulders fighting for the lead, but the multiple-Australian champion eventually got the better of the battle. Emily Hockey claimed the bronze medal in front of her home crowd.

"I wasn't too sure what was going to happen in that first corner. It got pretty close in the first turn and I was ready for some carnage," Buchanan said. "I knew that Sarsha would be close and it's great that she pushes me all the time.

"Being my first mountain bike race since worlds I was feeling a little bit rough in areas but I wear the rainbow jersey with pride and I had an absolute ball with it out there today. I was just as nervous for this race as I was for the world titles.

"This [Australian] title feels just as good as the first one."

In addition to being the first outing for Buchanan's rainbow jersey, it was the debut for the new four cross course at Eagle MTB Park that the current four cross world champion rated as world class.

"With four cross it's important to get the lines equal so there's not one fast line from top to bottom and they've done that here," Buchanan said.

"It's on a really good slope. They've made it really technical and it will make for really even racing."

In the men's race Luke Madill took his third Australian title after going through the quarter final and semi-final comfortably, but got pushed to the line in the race for gold by Randal Huntington who made it a husband and wife combination in the silver medal position. The bronze medal went to Graeme Mudd.

"Having that strong first straight helped me a lot and got me out of trouble in the final," Madill said. "But it's still hard and you never know who's behind you because with this track there's lots of different lines so anything can happen.

"Once you get to the final experience really counts. But having the younger ones push us is good."

On Saturday, elite cross country racers will go for green and gold jersey.

Full results