The middle weekend of July is National Champs weekend for most nations, so we’ve rounded up your Elite winners from across the globe.
Here are your Elite National Champions from around the World, trimmed down to those who are cutting the mustard at World Cup level. Canada and New Zealand are missing from the list, with the Canadians deciding their National Champions this weekend.
Austria
It would be a duke out between David Trummer and Andreas Kolb for the Austrian title in Semmering last weekend, with the YT man coming out on top by a fraction under three seconds. Will we see Trummer bag himself a World Cup podium in Maribor? Will Kolb have another Save of the Day?
Sophie Gutoerlhe would back up a string of World Cup podiums and wins with a solid seven second win.
Czech Republic
Spindleruv Mlyn would host the Czech Nationals last weekend, with Stanislav Sehnal and Barbora Prudovka coming away with the wins in the Elite categories. The front three men would be head and shoulder ahead of the rest of the pack, with Stehnal leading out Antonin Kral by two seconds, with Matej Charvat just over a second adrift in third.
Barbora Prudovka would take a healthy 13 second win, despite being better know for World Cup XC, over a flying fifteen year old Karolina Kadlecova.
France
Hot damn the French Elite Men’s title were a tightly-run thing this year, and entirely unsurprisingly given the quantity of Gallic talent these days. Valberg would host this year’s battle for French supremacy. The track featured an absolute slag of a sprint off the start.
Benoit Coulanges would defend his National title by the thinnest of margins over an unlikely suspect. Antoine Vidal would swap his enduro shoes for downhill and slip into second place by 0.36 of a second. Super Bruni would be 0.3 of a second back on Vidal. The top 18 places would be separated by ten seconds. Madness.
Myriam Nicole would shrug off her crash-ruined Les Gets runs to rock the tricolour on her arm for another year, with a seventeen second win.
Portugal
Goncalo Bandeira and Margarida Bandeira would make it a family affair at the Portuguese National Championships at Porto de Mos. Goncalo would see off Francisco Pardal for the Elite Men’s win, while Margarida would take her win by a cool fourteen seconds.
Italy
Davide Capello would best his team mate David Palazzari by just under a second to claim the fastest time of the weekend in Bergamo, despite only being a Junior. Palazzari would take the Elite win.
Vero Widmann had stiff competition from both a wild track, returning from injury and a flying Eleonora Farina. She’d take P1 in qualis and back that up with a near two second win when it mattered.
UK
On a scorching hot weekend in North Wales, Pearce Cycles would run a seamless operation at Rhyd-Y-Felin for the 2021 British National Downhill Championships.
Matt Walker would bang out almost two identical runs in seeding and finals to take the win, with a resurgent Charlie Hatton two seconds clear, with Danny Hart not far behind him.
KJ Sharp would see off the competition to back up her Hamsterley National round win, making good her second place seeding run, to come out almost three seconds up on Stacey Fisher. Massive props to Phoebe Gale who would take the second fastest time overall on the day. The race would be otherwise bereft of any female Elites who have podiumed at a World Cup.
USA
Winter Park, Colorado would play host to the US National Championships in all disciplines. In the downhill, there were plenty of heavy hitters in attendance. Gwin, Mulally, Shaw and Norton would go against the clock to wear the Stars and Stripes on their sleeve for the next year.
It would be Dakotah Norton who’d come out on top, pipping Syndicate’s Luca Shaw by just over a second. Austin Dooley would split the big guns for third, with Gwin and Mulally in fourth and fifth respectively.
Kailey Skelton would take a hefty thirteen second winning margin over Caroline Washam. There are few World Cup races between them however. With Anna Newkirk having made the jump to enduro, where is the next raft of top US female racers?
Switzerland
The Swiss National Champions would be decided in the classic downhill venue of Leysin. No nine second wins in the mud for Cedric Gracia here…
Yannick Baechler would see off Noel Niedeberger and Jerome Caroli to take the Elite Men’s win.
It’s not entirely surprising that Camille Balanche added yet another jersey to her collection, taking a ten second win over fellow World Cup veteran Emilie Siegenthaler.
Spain
Despite having departed the Brigade Racing Team, Alex Marin would take the win at the Spanish National Champs with an eight second win in Panticosa the Pyrenean mountains. No Angel Suarez to do battle with this time. He’d battle pain in his right thumb all week that got worse during practice and decided to sit the race out.
Aina Gonzalez Grimau would, despite being a Junior, obliterate the competition, taking the win by 25 seconds.
