Gee And Rachel Atherton Win British National Championships

Gee and Rachel Atherton triumphed in the Men’s and Women’s Elite races at Moelfre yesterday in front of an enthusiastic home crowd. An exultant Gee said “What a great day, sunshine, fantastic crowd – I’m really stoked to take the win here, just 8 minutes from our home.”

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Video by Chris Seager Films

The Moelfre track is a super fast, rolling track with many high speed corners, off camber sections and fast straights. It falls from 545m to 238 m over a 2.3 km run. Weather conditions were dusty despite recent downpours and strong winds up top meant that most competitors kept jumps to a minimum.

Gee seeded first in the Elite Men’s section less than half a second ahead of Josh Bryceland but in the final Gee extended the gap to 2.2 seconds clocking a final time of 2.25.94. Bryceland took second place with 2.28.14 and Steve Peat third with 2.28.59.

In the Women’s Elite seeding run Rachel led by 2 seconds at the first split but lost time on the bottom section to come in second to Manon Carpenter by 0.5 secs. In the final though Rachel really turned it up to beat Carpenter by 7.4 seconds with a time of 2.39.01 to Carpenter’s 2.46.42.

Photo by Jacob Gibbins

Rachel said “We love racing here, up at Jac’s place, with all our friends and family here. I’ve had a brilliant time.”

‘Farmer Jack’ who owns the Moelfre track presented the prizes and paid tribute to organizer Si Paton and to the Atherton family who had started the Moelfre track. Congratulating Gee and Rachel on their win he also announced that elder brother Dan had taken third in the Megavalanche event in France – a vintage weekend for the Atherton family!