A FORMER world champion made a special return to Bolton to walk the corridors of his old classrooms.

World mountain bike champion, Chris Eatough made a special visit to Bolton School last month to share stories of his time as a schoolboy and his professional career.

The 42-year-old, who left the school 26 years ago to move to the US with his family, returned as six times World 24-hour Solo Mountain Bike Racing Champion to give the 2016 Tillotson Lecture.

Opening the lecture with a short video on the film 24 Solo, which covers his quest to attain a seventh consecutive world title, he thanked staff for inviting him to visit his former stomping ground.

He said: "Wandering through these halls today and being part of school life for a day again really brought back to the forefront for me what a special place this is, what a great school this is, how fortunate I was to come to school here.

"It was a great place for me to kind of begin my young adult life, especially the way that I was able to blend academics and athletics here at Bolton School."

Mr Eatough attended Bolton School from 1986 to 1990 and lived in Edgworth with his family before they moved to America.

He took up professional mountain biking in 1999 and specialised in 24-hour, endurance and ultra-marathon events, going on to win six 24-hour solo world championships in a row, five USA national titles and competing all over the world.

At the lecture, which looked at the subject of long distance learning, he spoke about the sports he was passionate about during his time at Bolton School, including football, biathlon, water polo, swimming, tennis, and track and field.

The Old Boy shared a secret to his sporting success, working hard to develop new techniques to stay ahead, as the competition would quickly adopt his strategies and he would lose his advantage.

He also said that the friendship and camaraderie within his team and between teams was one of his favourite memories of the sport.

Following his seventh World Championship race, Mr Eatough went on to win two more National Championships before retiring from his fourteen-year mountain bike racing career.

His passion for bikes continues, and he has since then implemented a public bike sharing transportation network in Washington DC and is currently working on a similar project in Maryland where he lives with his wife and two young children.

At the end of the speech, the former champion presented Philip Britton, headteacher at Bolton School Boys' Division, with his 2005 World Championship jersey as a gift to the school.

The Tillotson Lectures are an annual event in the Boys’ Division calendar and also included talks from architect Robin Partington and Judge Roy Battersby.