VICTORIA’S Daniel McConnell took out the men’s cross country at the Australian national championships in Adelaide on Saturday.

This is the only mountain bike event on the Olympic program now and McConnell, the Beijing Olympian, took it out in style to impress selectors in the lead up to London 2012.

For McConnell, who won the Under 17 Australian title in 2001, it was his first national championship gold medal at the elite level.

“It’s great. It’s been a long time coming,” McConnell told cyclingnews.com

 ”I’ve been working towards this for a few months. I really wanted this, so to come out with the gold medal I’m just stoked.”

The 24-year-old was brilliant from the start and avoided a first corner crash that gave him the advantage.  

“There wasn’t a lot of passing so I knew I had to get off to a good start and try to set the early pace which I did,” he said. “After a lap I opened a gap of five seconds and kept building on that, that was the goal and it worked out brilliantly.”

- with cyclingnews.com