Three New Zealanders will contest the UCI MTB Eliminator World Championships in Germany this weekend.

National champion Lochlan Brown from Cambridge is joined by Cantabrian Amelie Mackay and Australian-based Jess Manchester for the urban-based MTB sprint competition in Aalen, a city 70kms east of Stuttgart.

There are 41 males and 22 females lining up for the exciting sprint competition around a course with obstacles, climbs and tricky corners.

After initially amalgamated into MTB World Cups, the first stand-alone event was in 2012 in Belgium won by American Brian Lopes and British rider Annie Last, who won the Commonwealth Games gold medal in cross-country in 2018.

The first world championships were in 2012 in Austria, with MTB cross-country riders largely dominating including kiwi Sam Gaze who won the world title in Andora in 2015.

It has become specialised in recent years, with Frenchman Titouan Perrin-Garnier chasing his seventh world crown in the men, while four-time winner Gaia Tormena from Italy will defend her women’s crown.

The competition has been dominated by riders from France, Switzerland, and Italy.

Manchester and Mackay return after competing last year in Indonesia where Brown won on debut in the UCI World Cup competition earlier this year.

The riders will complete an individual time trial to establish seeds for racing. There are four riders in each heat, with the top two moving through to the next round. There are elimination races for one-eight rounds, quarterfinals and semifinals to find the four riders for the grand final.

The action starts at 3.15pm on Saturday local time (Sunday 1.15am NZT) with finals schedule for 5pm (3am NZT).

Watch racing live: www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPcJXmYt0hY