Kathmandu, November 9:

Japanese bikers claimed the top two spots in both the Elite men’s and women’s Down Hill races here at the 14th Asian Mountain Bike Championship in Chobhar today.

Naoki Idegawa won the men’s championship in 2 minutes and 03.35 seconds, ahead of compatriot Junya Nagata, who finished second at 2 minutes and 04.10 seconds. King Man Tsui of Hong Kong ended up third finishing the 1.2km course in 2 minutes and 09.04 seconds.

Both the Japanese riders bettered their timings they had recorded earlier in the seeding race. Idegawa had completed the seeding race in 2 minutes and 06.72 seconds while Nagata had finished in 2 minutes and 08.61 seconds. Man Tsui, who had finished in 10th position with the timings of 2 minutes and 19.08 seconds in the seeding race, improved his timings about nine seconds to earn the third spot.

Meanwhile, Sajjan Rajbhandari gave Nepal a realistic chance of earning a podium finish when he completed the seeding race in 02:14.17. But unfortunately Rajbhandari ended up seventh overall with the timings of 2 minutes and 13.49 seconds. Another Nepali biker Kesh Bahadur Khatri ended up in the 18th position. Khatri completed the course in 2 minutes and 25.75 seconds. A total of 21 bikers took part in the event.

In the women’s section, Japanese Mio Suemasa recorded a comfortable victory over her countrywoman Tomoko IIzuka. Suemasa won the championship in 2 minutes and 24.60 seconds, about 19 seconds better than IIzuka (0:2:43.79).

With only three bikers participating in the women’s section, Shih Hsuan Cheng of Taipei was third in in 3 minutes and 03.59 seconds.

On Saturday, Chinese riders dominated the Cross Country races. Xue Li Jiang won the Elite Men’s championship and Chengyuan Ren led the Chinese clean sweep in the Elite Women’s section.