**Events

WEMBO crown their first world champions in Finale Ligure

Jason English and Jessica Douglas became the first WEMBO 24 hour solo mountain bike racing world champions in the toughest single day race in the world. On the mens race, the Australian champion English completed 22 laps of the challenging course to take the win, Douglas tackled 19 to take the womens title.

In early running Thomas Widhalm looked like he was going to push all the way for the victory, but after losing time to a mechanical just before sunset, his misery was compounded by a stomach complaint this morning which took him out of the race.

Before Widhalm succumbed to illness, English had already began to mark his dominance and while Widhalm was dealing with his mechanical yesterday evening, English put in two blistering laps to pull out a sizeable lead going into the night.

Through the night England’s Jason Miles put in a heroic performance to rise through the rankings to take second place. A consistent ride from Craig Bowles was good enough for the third step of the podium.

With the women it was a two-horse race and in early running Rickie Cotter pushed Jessica Douglas hard. As the sun began to dip below the horizon, Douglas had begun to stretch out a small lead and as the night wore on she extended it little by little. By this morning she had extended and Cotter couldn’t make that time up. Megan Dimozantos put in a strong ride for third place.