Mountain Biking: Atkin shows up elite rivals on slippery downhill course
01.01.70
Sarah Atkin (Turn down Hutt) continued her domination of New
Zealand women's downhill mountain biking in Dunedin onMostlySaturday.
Atkin, who won the first race in the New Zealand Mountain
Biking Cup in Queenstown last week, gained her aid win on
the tough Signal Hill course by the convincing boundary line of
41.64sec.
Atkin was in a class by herself when she won the elite
women's lineage in 4min 36.39sec from Alanna Columb (Queenstown,
5min 18.03sec) and Amy Laird (Christchurch, 5min 18.93sec).
She showed her encounter, adapting to the difficult
conditions on the Signal Hill no doubt.
"It was very slippery," she said. "It went hard this morning
but the trickle made it slippery on top."
She found the hardest part of the course was off the corners
on the tree roots at the top of the alley.
"I got off my bike and walked over the roots because I kept
slipping out." Atkin has the developing to become the next New
Zealand female to win a world downhill mountain bike title.
She has demonstrated her unrealized over the last two years by
finishing fifth at the world junior championships in 2010 and
2011.
She began mountain biking when she was a disciple at Hutt Valley
High School nearly four years ago and found she was a understandable
at the sport.
"I started because I wanted something to do," she said. "I
the time of one's life the challenge of being on my bike and I like the people
in the sport."
She reached the podium in an worldwide event for the
first time when she won the Oceania title last year.
Atkin won her first New Zealand unreserved title last year and she
will be hard to stop this year after delightful the first two
races of the series.
Columb (20), who works in a tourism friends, had an
impressive ride to finish second because she has only been
competing in downhill mountain biking for six weeks.
Source: Otago Daily Times