Rachel Atherton Wins Fifth World Championship Title in Val di Sole to Complete Perfect Season - Mpora

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Rachel Atherton Wins Fifth World Championship Title in Val di Sole to Complete Perfect Season

Rachel has now won the past 15 consecutive top level women's downhill events...

Rachel Atherton / Photo: Bartek Wolinski/Red Bull Content Pool

Rachel Atherton has made mountain biking history by winning the 2016 downhill World Championships in Val di Sole – and wrapping up the perfect season in the process.

The English mountain bike ace won seven out of seven World Cup events this year, starting off with victory in Lourdes in April before rounding off her 100% record in mountain biking’s elite event series in Vallnord on September 4.

All that was left to do for the most decorated member of the famous Atherton family after that was the World Championships, and she surprised absolutely nobody by winning in Italy today. Rachel was quickest in qualifying and then beat Myriam Nicole into first in finals by 3.114 seconds to take her fifth rainbow jersey.

Welsh shredder Manon Carpenter was victim of a huge crash during her race run going round the first corner and may have broken a collarbone in the incident.

For Rachel though, it was the perfect end to quite literally the perfect season. Atherton has now not only won all eight elite events in the calendar mountain biking year, she’s also now won the last 15 top level races, including World Cup and World Champs events, with the last time she raced at the top and didn’t win coming way back in April of 2015 in round one of the 2015 World Cup in Lourdes – and even then she still came second.

It’s an achievement that will not be forgotten anytime soon and will almost definitely draw even more attention to downhill mountain biking in the British media.

Rachel’s Winning Streak

  • 7 June 2015: Fort William World Cup
  • 14 June 2015: Leogang World Cup
  • 5 July 2015: Lenzerheide World Cup
  • 1 August 2015: Mont-Sainte-Anne World Cup
  • 8 August 2015: Windham World Cup
  • 23 August 2015: Val di Sole World Cup
  • 6 September 2015: Vallnord World Championships
  • 10 April 2016: Lourdes World Cup
  • 23 April 2016: Cairns World Cup
  • 5 June 2016: Fort William World Cup
  • 12 June 2016: Leogang World Cup
  • 9 July 2016: Lenzerheide World Cup
  • 6 August 2016: Mont-Sainte-Anne World Cup
  • 4 September 2016: Vallnord World Cup
  • 11 September 2016: Val di Sole World Championships

Congratulations to Rachel Atherton! We look forward to seeing if she can keep it up for 2016.

In the men’s event, Danny Hart came out on top to win his fourth race in a row and a sensational second rainbow jersey.

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