Cream of NZ Mountain Bike talent launch MTB National Performance Hub

The Mountain Bike National Performance Hub was officially launched today in Rotorua, signalling a significant milestone for the sport and new phase of development opportunity for talented young mountain bike riders across the country.

The Hub is one of a potential eight hubs that underpin Cycling New Zealand’s strategy to foster and grow young cycling talent, and increase the quantity and quality of riders feeding into the National High Performance Programme.



New Zealand mountain bike stars Anton Cooper, Sam Gaze and George Brannigan helped celebrate the launch today, joining Cycling New Zealand, hub sponsors and local stakeholders, and 25 young riders who are participating in the inaugural Mountain Bike National Performance Hub training camp. 
Current Under-23 World Champion Sam Gaze is fully supportive of the new Hub.

“As a young rider this Hub would have been great for me. I will certainly support it as much as I can and come down and ride with these guys. Hopefully this Performance Hub will provide the pathway for New Zealand to produce more world champions like Anton and me,” said Gaze.

The 2014 Commonwealth Games and Undr-23 World Champion Anton Cooper believes the Hub can establish the pathway for more world champions from New Zealand.

“It is fantastic for mountain biking to have this Hub as a way of the young promising riders to bridge up to potential professional careers. Sam and I got our breakthroughs quite young but for many this type of programme is going to be invaluable.”

Based at the campus of major hub sponsor, Toi Ohomai (formerly Waiariki / BOP Polytechnic) the inaugural Mountain Bike National Performance Hub camp is taking place from 10 to 16 October. 

As part of the camp riders have access to sports science facilities, resources and performance testing through the partnership with Toi Ohomai, as well as practical on-trail training, capitalising on the world class mountain bike trails on offer in Rotorua. 

The programme is a result of collaboration and concept development over the last two years, between key players including Mountain Bike New Zealand and Cycling New Zealand. 



Cycling New Zealand CEO Andrew Matheson said seeing the Hub come to fruition was an exciting and rewarding milestone for the partners involved in its development. 

“Working collaboratively with key players within the sport to invest in development and performance pathways is a key to securing top talent and continuing to grow New Zealand’s performance outcomes on the world stage,” he said. 

“We believe these Performance Hubs will be the start of something big”.

The Mountain Bike National Performance Hub has received support from local stakeholders and businesses including Toi Ohomai as the official tertiary education partner, Red Stag Timber, Rotorua Lakes District Council and Rotorua Energy Charitable Trust. 

The camp is open to both cross country and downhill riders.  Following the inaugural camp, the Mountain Bike National Performance Hub will provide training for a small squad of riders who will be based fulltime in Rotorua, as well as running six to eight training camps a year for wider groups of young riders.