British Downhill Championships 2015

After winning the BDS at Moelfre I felt the pressure for the British Champs at Llangollen the weekend after. I knew I was capable of winning, but I also knew that every single one of the Junior girls competing was capable of winning. Last year I was gutted not to be able to compete in the British Champs because I had crashed and gave myself concussion and stitches in my face the week before. Ever since then it's been a big goal of mine to win that striped jersey. 

It was a pretty stressful weekend because I really wanted the win and I knew at the end of it I only had one run to make it count. In practice on Saturday I wasn't feeling very comfortable in the dusty conditions and having my bike sliding all over the place. I managed to get the three drops at the end though after Hope let me follow her into then. However after testing both lines we figured that the B line was actually faster. 

Photo by Phil Bulkeley

I had had a few crashes in practice including an over the handlebars off a drop into a steep corner which hurt a bit. And at the end of Saturday I still wasn't sure of some of my lines on the ever changing track so I wasn't feeling very confident going into race day. 

I managed to just qualify first by 0.4 seconds with a pretty messy run. This gave me a bit of confidence as I knew I was roughly in the right place but the times were super tight and all the girls were riding well this year. I would have to up my game in the race run.

At the top waiting for the race I was the most nervous I've ever been for a downhill race. It didn't help that they were running half an hour behind so there was even more waiting than there should have been and I had the pressure of being last Junior girl down. 

But once I got on the track it was so much easier to stay calm and focused. Everything finally came together and I managed to get the lines I had been stressing about. It was over in a blur. I crossed the line 2 seconds up. I was so relieved that I had managed to pull it together when it really counted. 

The sun was out as I crossed the line

The podium ceremony was pretty fun as we got to have fake champagne wars and completely soak each other. It was also awesome to see a full podium of girls in the Juvenile, Youth and Junior categories. Well done to Aston, Rona, Hope and Gemma, it was super tight racing with only 10 seconds between us all! Big thanks to my sponsors and my parents for all the support.

It was hard to open!

The woman who inspires all us girls

Lucy and I in our awesome Female Riders kit