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World mountain bike champion Manon Carpenter has had 10 bikes stolen from her family home in Caerphilly .

Manon received a phone call from her father on Tuesday morning to tell her eight mountain bikes and two motorbikes had been taken overnight from the garage.

The 2014 world champ, who recently moved from Cardiff back to the family home in Castle Park, Caerphilly, said she was “gutted” at the news, and called it a “massive inconvenience”.

It might be the winter season, meaning a relatively quiet period for Manon’s biking schedule, but the items stolen include those with great sentimental value, including the Saracen Myst mountain bike on which she won a silver medal at September’s world championships.

'It's a massive inconvenience'

She said: “It’s just not right, and there has been a lot of it going around recently, including a local junior rider who had his stolen too.

“It’s a massive inconvenience as I’m meant to be going away in December, and I want the people to be caught.”

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(Image: Huw Fairclough)

The burglars also took all of her father’s mountain bikes when they broke into the garage on Tuesday evening.

And Manon added: “I was away last night and had a text this morning from my dad saying ‘I need to know what was in the garage because everything’s gone’.

'Gutted' and 'angry'

“I’m gutted really. And thinking about it, the more you get angry because it’s so rude to go into other people’s property and take stuff. And it means it’s going to be a bit of a nightmare in training over the next few weeks, so I need to get the situation sorted as soon as I can.

“The next step is to get new replacements for the parts, but the amount stolen adds up to quite a lot to be honest.

“Luckily my team is very good at sorting and helping me out but it’s not ideal and there are lots of other people who have been targeted in the area.

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Aiming to raise awareness of the burglary

“I’d really like to raise some awareness about this and get as many people to know about it as possible so we can get them back. Someone will probably be selling and buying them soon so I’d like them to be caught.”

Carpenter claimed a world championship gold medal in 2014, but won silver with the Saracen Myst bike in 2015, relinquishing her medal to fellow British rider Rachel Atherton, who won her third global title.

It was confirmed on Thursday British Cycling will host the 2016 British National Downhill Championships, and Carpenter will be in the mix.

Gwent Police have asked anyone with any information about the incident to call police on 101 quoting log 37 24/11/15.