After 24 hours of pushing their bodies to the limit, the the Australian open men's solo 24-hour mountain bike championship came down to two minutes at Mt Majura yesterday.
Victorian Jason English claimed the narrow victory over Canberra's Dan Mackay when the competition ended at noon.
Both completed 43 laps of the 9.5km course, and stopped for only about 10 minutes during the race.
The win qualified English for the 24 hours of Adrenalin Solo World Championships in Alberta, Canada. His winner's prize included return flights to the event plus $2000.
English was runner-up at the world championships last year.
English admitted after the race he hadn't previously considered the 30-year-old Mackay would be a threat.
''Beforehand people were asking who my competitors were and I definitely didn't list Dan as my competition,'' English said. ''I will be definitely be putting him down on that list now.''
Mackay also qualified for the world championships as winner of the men's 30 to 34 category, but won't attend. Instead he'll focus the rest of the year on his fourth year of medicine at ANU.
He was happy to have come from behind in the middle of the race to finish strongly.
''I came into it pretty uncertain with how I was going to go, but I started up near the front, usually I'm a really slow starter,'' he said. ''To go through a really tough time earlier in the race and then just to come through and just really start to enjoy it was fantastic.
''To come second to Jason English I'm pretty happy with that.''
Jess Douglas won the women's race yesterday, in a perfect preparation for her first world title campaign.
Douglas had a tight battle with Katrin Van Der Spiegel, who lead the race from around 7pm on Saturday to 7am yesterday.
Douglas and Van Der Spiegel are the two best 24-hour riders in Australia, but had never raced each other.
''I was really rapt that Katrin signed up at the last minute to race,'' Douglas said. ''This was really tough competition.''
Douglas qualified for the world championships last year, but decided not to go until she was ready. This year she had already paid her entry fee, but was hoping to win the flights over and the extra $2000 at the Canberra event.
''In my head I wasn't ready [last year] I think it was the right decision,'' she said. ''Why bother going if you aren't going to have a crack? Now I'm ready.''
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Australian 24-hour solo mountain bike championship: Open Men: 1st Jason English 43 laps. 2nd Dan Mackay 43 laps. 3rd Andrew Fellows 41 laps. Open Women: 1st Jessica Douglas 37 laps. 2nd Katrin Van Der Spiegel 35 laps. 3rd Vanina Vergoz 34 laps.