MALVERN celebrated not one but two national champions last weekend as the local mountain bike duo swept up all three titles at the British National Championships in Tong.

Commonwealth Mountain Bike champion and Olympian Evie Richards won both the XC short-track and XCO (Olympic track) course events to make it a clean sweep, whilst Hattie Harnden, also from Malvern, won the downhill event. 

Richards won both cross country titles on offer to her, winning the short track title by 38 seconds over Annie Last, and the XCO title by more than five minutes over Isla Short.

What makes the achievement that bit more special is that both are former pupils of St James C of E Primary School in West Malvern. Both also went to The Chase secondary school in Malvern. 

"It was super muddy, which is always my favorite conditions," Richards said after the double podium finish.

"We just had a really great time. There were no mechanicals, no crashes, and the weekend just went perfectly smooth for me.

"It was crazy how bad the conditions actually were, and very different to the hot races we’ve been in. But I just tried to stay cool on the technical descents and just really concentrate on really pushing on the hard bits of the course."

Harnden, making her downhill national championships debut, bested Tahnee Seagrave and Phoebe Gale by five and seven seconds, respectively to claim the gold medal. 

"I’m still absolutely buzzing from the weekend,” Harnden said. "It’s a bit of a surprise to be honest.

"It was one of those real moments where I got to the bottom of my run and was like, 'Oh, how did I even get here'. I was just in a real, almost perfect flow state."