The Cycling NZ Schools' South Island Mountain Bike Champs were held at Coronet Peak in Queenstown last week, where our MGC Year 13 student Maddy Sinclair competed in multiple races.

Last Thursday the Cross Country was raced. Maddy got off to a flying start and lead into the first climb. She was overtaken by friends from Rangi Ruru and Mt Aspiring College during the second climb on lap 1 and started feeling very sick. She was determined though to finish and continued to race hard and eventually pulled away from 4th place on lap 3 and 4 to easily take the bronze medal. It was a gutsy performance.

On Friday, the Downhill was raced. The Coronet track is a track that Maddy likes, having picked up a National Title there last month. The track was very bumpy making the riding much harder. After a storming seeding run, she broke the 4 minute mark for the first time. She ended up in 3rd. During race runs, Maddy improved one position to take the silver medal in the Downhill.

The final race of the championships was the Enduro on Saturday. Maddy ended up in a very tight battle for 2nd, 3rd and 4th place. Going into the final stage, Maddy was two seconds behind Katie (Mt Aspiring) and 1.5 seconds ahead of Erica (Nayland). All three girls raced very hard and fair on the final stage and were a credit to their schools. Katie ended her lead to take 2nd and Maddy beat Erica to two seconds on stage 4 to take 3rd place overall in the Enduro.In the overall champions position, Maddy ended up as the Overall U20 Girls South Island Secondary Schools Champion! A huge achievement for Maddy’s last schools' South Island Champs.  A huge achievement for Maddy’s last schools South Island Champs. Big thanks to Mr Thomas for filling in all the paperwork over the last five years to allow Maddy to compete.