A mountain biker who cut his teeth on the Sunshine Coast has won gold at the 2018 Canadian Downhill Championships.
The races were run on the last weekend of July at Panorama, B.C., and Magnus Manson was one of a quartet of B.C. riders to claim the top spots.
Manson took first place in the men’s Elite division, his first national title in that category.
It was a close finish for Manson, of the Canyon factory team, who qualified in fifth and posted a time of 3:04.77 in the final, just 2/100 of a second ahead of silver medalist Hugo Langevin, who rides for the Devinci Development Team. Bronze medalist Mark Wallace, also with Canyon, was just 36/100 of a second behind Manson’s winning time.
“I’m stoked! This is what you go for,” said Manson in the Cycling Canada report on the Championships. “The level in Canada has gone up so much; there are tons of guys qualifying for World Cups and a few years ago that wasn’t happening. I love this track, it’s got everything; there’s rocks, there’s roots, there’s dust. It’s a fun track.”
