Long wait for ‘Sik Mik’ over with gold win
A Cairns hometown hero has ended the hoodoo to finally clinch victory in a major mountain biking event in the Far North.
Mick Hannah, known as ‘Sik Mik’, has fallen agonisingly short in his four previous attempts to claim gold in Cairns.
But on Sunday, Hannah broke the shackles and claimed the gold medal in the Crankworx RockShox Downhill event for the first time.
Hannah said victory was “one of the best feelings” after years of heartbreak.
“It was such a good race, to win it by that close as well, it is an awesome feeling,” Hannah said.
“I wasn’t 100 per cent happy with how I rode but I still managed to pull myself together to get that result.
“It has been a long journey training for it this time around but the year isn’t even half way through yet, so I still have a long time to go.”
Hannah won Sunday’s race by three-tenths of a second to fellow Australian Jackson Frew.
It is the second event in the Crankworx World Tour, with Hannah having raced in the first event at Rotorua, New Zealand.
He won’t participate in round 3, with Hannah to head to Italy on Wednesday to take part in the EBike Enduro World Cup.
“We have the first round of the World Cup in Italy in two weeks,” Hannah said.
“So I am heading over to that, then it is on to Austria and then back to Italy. I will be over there for about five weeks in Europe before coming back home.”
Hannah will return to the tournament for the fourth and final Crankworx event in Canada in July. The 39-year-old’s resume speaks for itself after the 22 years of competition.
He has finished on the podium 16 times before Crankworx Cairns, and is a four-time Australian Elite Men’s Downhill Champion, three-time Australian National BMX Champion, and won the Downhill World Cup in Spain in 2006 and the Air Dh in Rotorua, New Zealand in 2018.