Christchurch schoolboy Anton Cooper has won the junior men's cross-country title at the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in Austria.
Cooper, who turned 18 last month, dominated the race to beat home defending champion Victor Koretsky of France by more than two minutes.
He becomes the first New Zealander to win the coveted rainbow jersey in cross-country mountainbike. New Zealand has won one world championship before in mountain bike when Tauranga's Vanessa Quin won the downhill title in 2004.
Cooper dominated at Saalfelden and was in a class of his own, going faster than most of the riders in the under-23 race.
Cooper was runner-up in his world championship debut to Koretsky last year but his win means he has completed an unbeaten season after claiming all three world cup races that he contested this year as well as today's world championship.
