Mountainbiker completes treble

Redwood Valley cyclist Pippi Taylor proved simply unstoppable at the National Schools MTB Championships in Christchurch.

The 12-year-old won the enduro, cross-country and downhill races in the space of three days to also clinch the overall individual title and lead her Nelson Intermediate School to team honours in the girls’ U13 division.

Pippi’s mother Jenny Cooper confirms they had pretty high hopes after the Nelson Mountain Bike club rider had gone so well against adults in the Broken Axe event in Maitai Valley before heading to the nationals.

Fortunately, Pippi had qualified first in seeding for the downhill as the final itself was cancelled after the ski lift broke. It was used to transport riders to the top of the Christchurch Adventure Park course. So for safety reasons, the junior downhill races were called off and placings awarded on the seedings.

Some parents were adamant they should have been allowed to get their kids to the start line but with so many of them it could have been a logistical nightmare.
As for Pippi’s winning streak, Jenny says she’s a recreational cyclist so the competitive nature probably comes from her husband Graeme’s marathon running background.

She insists the credit should really go to renowned Nelson coach Alistair Matthew from Gravity Cycles.

Alistair, better known as “El Jefe” (the chief)  has 63 kids in his Gravity Development Squad and reckons up to 50 percent of them competed at the nationals with Pippi the stand out individual performer.
With another hat on, Cycling New Zealand Commissionaire Alistair defends the downhill being called off.

“The weather forecast wasn’t very good anyway. At least it wasn’t because of problems on the course itself,” says Alistair. And in any case, he always urges his charges to go hard in the seeding stage just in case something goes awry later.

Of the older riders, victories for Maddi Harrop in the U16  enduro and Lucy Vincent in the U16 cross-country helped power Nelson College for Girls to an impressive third in the overall standings against boys and mixed schools.
Nayland College’s Xanthe Robb was second overall in the U20 female class while schoolmate Nico Schroder was also runner-up in the U17 male.

Josef Houghton, from Nelson College, also finished second overall in the boys’  U14 grade while Waimea College’s Harley Heyward was third overall in the U15 boys class.

Nelson College team manager Alex Crisp says there was real strength across the local schools and, while they were competing against each other, most are good friends from riding together so much with the Nelson Mountain Bike Club.