McCarthy, Fluker win elite hill climb titles

The New Zealand Mountain Bike National Champs got underway with supporting events on Thursday, and UCI category CN events on Friday night and Saturday in the Dunedin locations of Signal Hill and Forrester Park. MTBNZ made the difficult decision to proceed with the event after the devastating Christchurch earthquake, in the interests of the Christchurch mountain bike riders and their families, who appreciated the brief distraction and the support the event community was able to provide for competition week.

Always a specialty discipline, the hill climb event up Signal Hill from the Logan High School staging area drew a small but quality field to start the championships programe off.

In the men's competition, the highly experienced Gavin McCarthy clung onto to new mountain bike junior bolter Tom Filmer for as long as he could up the steep Signal Hill course, but had no answer for the young rider who claimed first finisher honours as well as a junior national championship title with his 12 minute, 12 second climb. McCarthy had to be content with a Championship title in the senior men's category, still no mean feat.

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In the women's race, Queenstown's Kate Fluker cleared out to win by over a minute from Raewyn Morrison, and was never threatened for her championship title.

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