Irish elite champion, Chris Dawson, and rapidly emerging junior, Aine Doherty, have both taken impressive results on the international mountain biking scene. Dawson, a former top downhill rider turned international road racer, is currently focused on MTB XC and has now won his first UCI-ranked race in Serbia.
The Dawson Racing man took three podium finishes, including a victory, in UCI-ranked events during his trip to Serbia, securing 106 world ranking points in the process as he bids to qualify for the Paris Olympics.
Meanwhile, Doherty, a 16-year-old riding for VC Glendale, took her first international win at the British Cycling National Cross-country Series. She was in against 18 other juniors, including the top UK riders, and emerged best. That was a quality result for the first-year junior, who charged through the youth ranks in Ireland in recent years.
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As Doherty is mostly competing on the island of Ireland, and so not gaining results that would move her up the grid in British races, she started 16th of the 19 riders in the field last weekend. However, she quickly made her way through all of the riders to hit the front.
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Competing for Cycling Ulster in the opening round of the 2023 British series at Parkwood in Tong, Bradford, once she took her place at the front she rode to victory, chased by Kacey Eyeington (Derwentside) for the entire race. Daisy Taylor (Royal Albert) was 3rd with Phoebe Roche (WXC Racing) 4th and Lucy Allsop (Rotor) in 5th.
For Dawson, his racing trip to Serbia last weekend could hardly have gone much better. He rode three races in the Serbia Epic Series, finishing 2nd in the first two events and then winning the final one, last Sunday.
That third event, with fatigue setting in for all of the riders from the previous two days racing, saw Dawson rise to the top. He made the key selection of six riders that emerged at the front due to the pace of the first half of the eight-lap race.
On the fifth lap, Martin Haring, the nine-time Slovakian champion and winner of the race Dawson had ridden the previous day, put in a dig which was prove decisive.
That effort split the front group, with Dawson the only one able to follow Haring. The Irish-Slovakian pair then began to ride clear of the chasing group of three or four. On the sixth lap, it became clear Dawson had recovered better than Haring from the exertions of the previous two days of racing.
He pushed on during that sixth lap and managed to open a gap; leading the race solo by about 30 seconds from Haring as he went out onto lap 7, with two passages of the circuit remaining.
While the Irish rider found himself with his first UCI-ranked race win staring him in the face - a big moment for any rider - he managed to stay calm; whipping around the circuit to maintain his lead and win.
That victory, in the Class 1 Andrevlje XCO Round 2, followed his 2nd place in the first round the previous day, which was also a Class 1 UCI-ranked race. Dawson also raced on Friday and took 2nd place in the Yason Creative District event, a Class 3 race.
