Seeing as this was the biggest race of the year and Peaty finally won the worlds, he gets 4 shots to tell the story of his day…

It’s 6.45am on race day and Doug and Rick the team mechanics are up having breakfast. The night before, Steve’s bike got an extra an extra special fine tuning and every possible nut, bolt and setting was checked and re-checked. This morning Rick doesn’t let Steve’s bike out of his sight. It’s a big day and nobody knows what is going to happen in a race run that is 8 hours away.

Peaty gets a few practice runs in and checks his lines. The bike gets a last look over before the long wait till race time. Here he is on the ‘triple treat’ before the hordes of heckling and well lubricated Ozzie fans have managed to stumble up the hill. This spot was half way up the hill, but it was where all the action was and it was definitely the place to be for atmosphere.

With all the excitement and champagne flowing Victor Lucas supplied this ” bubbly sprayer” shot with a completely different caption about action up at the rocks and since Victor has now gone back to his internet free hotel it’s up to me to create a new caption…so…here goes…how about…”yeeeaaaaaahhhhhhh Peaty!”

(The eagle eyed among you will have spotted that Steve inked the names of his two sons, Jake and George on to the knuckles of his gloves, I wondered if those boys will get a taste for champers?)

An incredible day, emotions were in the stratosphere and everybody is just so happy that Peaty has at last got what he has been chasing for so many years. Congratulations came from all over the world, even Nico Vouilloz sent Peaty a text to say ‘well done’. From now on any time Steve gets asked ‘how many times have you been 2nd at the Worlds?’ he won’t have to hesitate. The answer will be ‘4 times, then I won the bloody thing!’.

Greg Minnaar was 2nd today by just 0.05sec. For sure Greg gave it everything he had today and would have wanted those rainbow stripes, but I guess the best consolation for such a small margin is that it was his team mate Peaty that got the gold. For Santa Cruz boss Rob Roskopp, having two of his riders on the podium – things just couldn’t be any better

Mick Hannah – the man a lot of people were quietly expecting to come away as another home grown hero in Australia. Mick was looking fast and powerful in practice and everybody knows he is animal for fitness. But he said he knew Peaty would be the man to beat today.

Emmeline Ragot – your new women’s world champ. With her fast but gung-ho style Emmeline has had a tendency to suffer under pressure. At times today she looked on the edge but she managed to hold it together and proved she has the speed when it counts.

Second place for Tracy Moseley, 2.49 sec down on Emmeline Ragot. Tracy was honest and said she wasn’t too happy with her run, she had been riding well all week, but things just didn’t come together for her today. She has been chasing the Worlds jersey for some time now and Peaty said ‘maybe you have to wait till your 35 Tracy!’.

Steve Peat wins the mountainbike world championship in Canberra Australia