You know that tag about the Home of Champions? Who'd ever have thought that it would be Middridge?

It's a dot of a place between Shildon and Newton Aycliffe, with a pub, a phone box and a legend about fairies.

A good cyclist could clear the village in 20 seconds; Chris Newton would do it much quicker. Now, however, the Co Durham hamlet is much on the map.

Chris, 29 last Sunday, has long been a member of the Middridge Cycle Racing Team. At the weekend in Denmark he won the 50k "points" title - by a huge margin - in the World Track Cycling Championships.

"It's an unbelievable achievement but the credit's all his; we just helped where we could," says Jack Wright - he of Middridge House, Middridge - who formed the team 21 years ago.

"Jack's been wonderful to me. He must have seen something there," says the new world champion.

Jack, 61-year-old boss of Middridge Engineering - "Oh aye, I'm quite fond of the place" - signed Chris, from Stockton, as an 18-year-old student.

Though he now races for the World Performance Squad, he remains a Middridge member.

"He got me introduced to the top end of racing," says Chris, an Olympic bronze medallist in Sydney. "Obviously I'm aiming at the Athens Games next. That's the real pinnacle of public recognition."

The media reckoned his victory a surprise. Jack - fair to Middridge - didn't.

"It was unexpected in an expected sort of way, if you know what I mean. He's been world class for years."

Home in the early hours of Sunday, Chris celebrated his 29th with a small family party. Today he'll be back out on his bike - a Middridge fairy tale, if ever.