How many british XC riders are world champions, or even 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th place?

Ah, the BC excuse, you could have said that about the track if you care to look back as well, of course there is no correlation with talented xc riders essentially pulled into the road/track programme since the programme started is there….

There are good young male mtb riders coming through, and BC now give their academy riders the same input as the other disciplines, which hasn’t been the case previously. If the programme stops now it won’t be replaced, the critical mass which has been established will be lost, and there won’t be the riders to get the UCI points needed to qualify.