New Zealand champion Anton Cooper wrapped up the Oceania Continental Mountain Bike Series with a double win in the final rounds in Cairns at the weekend.<\/p>\n
The Lapierre PXR Racing rider dominated both cross-country races, lapping his nearest riders at the Smithfield MTB Park in the north Queensland destination.<\/p>\n
The wins had double significance for Cooper, who earns a guarantee start in the short-track races for the upcoming UCI MTB cross-country season in Europe and North America.<\/p>\n
A key to a strong World Cup season is the rider\u2019s starting position, which is determined from the short track races held two days before the main race throughout the world cup season. A place in the short track race comes from overall ranking, and as Cooper had a season away from the World Cup competition, that ranking had dropped.<\/p>\n
\u201cGetting these points guarantees me a short-track start at the World Cup, which is a big goal. You need the short track start to get the chance to start in the first three row of cross country,\u201d said Cooper.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis event has so much going for it, it is a great venue, there are great places to stay in town, it\u2019s close to the airport, the track is great. It has all the foundations to be a big event and hopefully it continues to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n
New Zealand riders also continued their domination in the age classes in the Oceania MTB series.<\/p>\n
Christchurch rider Millie Junge also enjoyed wins on both days to wrap up the junior women\u2019s honours, with Tauranga\u2019s Dulcie Copeland third in both races.<\/p>\n
Alexandra\u2019s Eddie Adams was third in the under-23 men, while Tommy Mollison (Auckland) won the junior men with the under-17 Oceania champion, Levi Gear (Orewa) third.<\/p>\n
\ud83d\udcf8: Phil Warring<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Zealand champion Anton Cooper wrapped up the Oceania Continental Mountain Bike Series with a double win in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":["post-618432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}