News – Nikki Harris with Rio Ambitions

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The country’s champion in cyclo-cross and former GB squad rider, Nikki Harris looking to race the road at Rio 2016

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News – Nikki Harris with Rio Ambitions

In an interview with British Cycling, Nikki Harris, admits “The Olympics is a real objective, but there’s a lot of time to go before I’ll have a sense of how possible it is.”

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Nikki Harris winning the British Cyclo-Cross title in 2016.

Nikki was the British under 23 road race champion in 2007, just ahead of a certain Lizzie Armitstead and before she became known as a ‘cross rider, Nikki was riding with the World’s best on the road, track and in mountain biking.

Now she says, a place in the GB team at the Olympics is an aim. It’s a worthy goal to go for because her ride in the cyclo-cross Worlds had all the hallmarks of a champion and whilst she did not win, she showed, as she has with wins and podiums in the World CX Cup, that she has the talent to race with the best, so why not the Olympics?

“Olympics or not, I want to use my ‘cross form and go into the early races on the road being able to contribute to the team. It gives myself and the team an idea of what type of rider I will be on the road and whether I’m capable of doing the job Lizzie would need me to do come the Olympics.”

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2007 – Nicole Cooke and Nikki Harris with their Gold medals.

Harris, who moved to Lizzie Armistead’s team, Boels–Dolmans for the 2016 season, will get plenty of opportunities to race with the rider she beat for that Under 23 title in 2007 and do what many of the country’s top women are looking to do and that is, ride the Rio Road Race and help GB win Gold yet again.

An omen or not, the ‘other’ champion in 2007 the day Nikki won the British Under 23 title was a certain Nicole Cooke, an Olympic champion on the road a year later.

Nikki goes on to say “After this weekend I still have around four or five cyclo-cross races to go. ‘Cross season for me will finish mid-February and my road season with the team will begin a week or two afterwards.”

“I will race through till mid-April. At that point I will take some rest and then begin to build up again towards the Amgen Tour of California in the second half of May. What happens next really depends on how the start of my road season has gone.”

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2005
1st Straiton, Women’s National RR Series

2006
3rd points race, Sydney, UCI Track Cycling World Cup Classics
8th points race, Commonwealth Games
13th road race, Commonwealth Games

2007
1st British Road Race Championships (Under 23)
4th British National Circuit Race Championships

2010
2nd British National Cyclo-cross Championships

2011
2nd British National Cyclo-cross Championships

2012
1st United Kingdom British National Mountain Biking Championships
2nd British National Cyclo-cross Championships

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2007 and it’s Nikki (centre) who is the champion from Lizzie Armitstead (world champion 2015).

2013
1st British Cyclo-cross Championships

2014
3rd, Campbell Park, UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup

2015
1st Cyclo-cross Namur
2nd British National Cyclo-cross Championships
3rd European Cyclo-cross Championships
4th UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships

2016
1st British Cyclo-cross Championships
5th UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships

2016_Feb_Caspv2

 

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