Kaikoura teenage Oli Clark fired the first shot for the 2025 season with the overall win in the opening downhill round of the Mountain Bike New Zealand national series in Dunedin.
The national series began on Saturday with cross-country which doubled as the first round of a new UCI Continental Series which attracted several riders from Australia including triple Olympian and two-time world championship medallist, Rebecca Henderson.

The 2025 New Zealand MTB Championships will return to the sport’s spiritual home in Rotorua.
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It will be the seventh time that Rotorua has hosted the event in the last 20 years, with the event hosted by the Rotorua Mountain Bike Club and Cycling New Zealand on 22 - 23 February.

​Canterbury’s  Anton Cooper bagged his ninth elite cross-country title with an emphatic performance at the Torpedo7 MTB National Championships in Queenstown.

The 29-year-old Trek Factory professional was in a class of his own, opening a 22 second gap on the opening lap of six at Coronet Peak, going on to win by a minute after buttoning off over the final lap.
Meanwhile Under-23 World champion Sammie Maxwell from Taupo claimed her fourth straight elite women’s crown in equally dominant fashion, winning by nearly five minutes in a display of power and precision.

Van Leuven will compete against fellow kiwis Poppy Lane and Sacha Earnest, who joined her on the world championship podium in Glasgow last year.

It is the second straight year that the championships have ventured south, with the Queenstown MTB Club providing support for the Coronet Peak organisation and the Cycling New Zealand events team.