Ja­son Costel­loe and Maria Good­ing stamped their au­thor­i­ty on lo­cal moun­tain bike rac­ing when the pair won the Na­tion­al Moun­tain Bike Cham­pi­onship men's and women's events, re­spec­tive­ly, last Sun­day at Ch­aguara­mas.

The sev­enth an­nu­al Riv­er Raid race took place at the scenic Ar­bore­tum and at­tract­ed 90 par­tic­i­pants in all cat­e­gories of races, with Costel­loe win­ning the four-lap 20 km in 1:03hrs.

In sec­ond place was Car­los Suarez Vi­las, 37, of Spain (1:07:25) fol­lowed by Rishi Ram­lalack, 21, in a time of 1:07.33, af­ter be­ing rel­e­gat­ed to third po­si­tion by mem­bers of the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion's ex­ec­u­tive, Frank Git­tens. Four­teen (14) rid­ers par­tic­i­pat­ed in the 20km event.

The two-lap (5km) race was more com­pet­i­tive, as it at­tract­ed 49 rid­ers. This was won by the very promis­ing Pe­ter Sel­l­i­er, 13, in 35:22. He was fol­lowed home by Nicholas Hospedales, 38, in 35:33 and Greg Downes, 31, in 35:47.

Suf­fer­ing from the flu, Good­ing, 23, still man­aged to lead home the ladies in the two-lap event in a time of 38:23. Be­hind her were Gabrielle Williams, 27, in 49:58 and first-timer Sharon Ro­driguez, 43, in 55:20.

Among the young­sters, Scott-Michael Shaw and Is­abel De Abreau won the un­der-8 di­vi­sion; Ben­jamin Pfis­ter and Mi­ran­da Frost won the un­der 10 and Jean Marc Grander­son and Soleil Richard­son won the 15-and-un­der age group.

The event al­so fea­tured a 5km trail run in which 271 run­ners par­tic­i­pat­ed. Shir­van Ba­boolal, 22, and Lau­ren Greene-Roe­sel, 35, took top ho­n­ours.

This year, the race was spon­sored joint­ly by the CDA, T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion, Mike's Bikes, Blue Wa­ters and Gatorade.