The UCI has started to dole out the rainbow jerseys at this year’s Mountain Bike and Trials World Championships in Livigno, Italy. There’s not all that much to engage the attention of a generally UK-centric news site, though, really. We’ve had the Team Relay, which didn’t feature a British team – Spain (Ruben Ruzafa, Oliver Aviles, Rocio Gamonal, Jose Antonio Hermida) won it by 19seconds from Italy, with France another 11s behind them. Rainbow jerseys have also been awarded for the Junior Women XC, won by the Czech Republic’s Tereza Hurikova by over a minute from Germany’s Hanna Klein. No Brits in that one, and none in the Junior Men either. Austria’s Robert Gehbauer crushed the opposition in that one, over three minutes clear of chasing duo Olivier Sarrazin (France) and Tim Wijnants (Belgium).

There’s more interest for British audiences in the Trials competition. International trials is, in some ways, a little like boxing, with multiple governing bodies, separate championships, different rules and all sorts. But never mind all that, the key thing is that Britain’s Ben Savage won the Junior 20in Semi-Final, three points clear of Germany’s Marco Thomä. Fellow Brit Ben Slinger came in fourth, so it’s looking good for the finals. The Elite 20in Semi has also taken place – there’s one Brit, Rob Poyser, down in 28th place. You get some idea of the level of riding in the Elite category by looking at the section points – Savage scored 30 points across 16 sections to win the Junior Semi, while Spain’s Benito Ros and Poland’s Rafal Kumorowski both got 17 on the same sections to take the top two spots. Ros won it by virtue of clearing seven sections…

The trials finals are today, along with the Under-23 XC race, plus DH and XC training and the 4X qualifiers. Races in which we’re hoping for strong British performances all take place over the weekend – all the Downhill (watch out for Dan and Gee Atherton, Marc Beaumont, Neil Donoghue, Steve Peat and Dave Wardell in Elite Men; Ben Cathro, Brendan Fairclough and Matthew Simmonds in Junior Men; Helen Gaskell, Fionn Griffiths and Tracy Moseley in Elite Women and Rachel Atherton in Junior Women) and 4X finals on Saturday, Trials finals and XC races on Sunday. Well, the Men’s XC race anyway – there aren’t any British riders in the Women’s race. Liam Killeen and Oli Beckingsale will be flying the flag in the Men’s. Full results can be had from www.uci.ch.