Category: Cycling

With the rest of the team off site seeing in Jerusalem and floating in the Dead Sea on the rest day at the World MTBO Champs I was booked by the TCA and British Orienteering onto  the IOF advisers course. This 4 hour course together with the reams of rules, guidelines and appendixes I will receive when I get home qualifies me to  become an advisor / controller on major international events. The course covered all the current mapping and planning guidelines plus all the out of forest stuff from accommodation to medal ceremonies. The course was useful for several reasons. One is that someone in the UK is now fully up to date with international rules and guidelines which is paramount to the development of the domestic sport. Two I will possibly get invited to advise on a future World Ranking Event which means foreign travel and the chance to absorb other countries ways of running events, again valuable for UK MTBO development.
Full IOF rules and guidelines are available at http://www.orienteering.org

The event was held at Eshtaol Forest a 20 min drive from the event centre. The area was steeper, and even drier than the other days, with a less dense track network of larger tracks and paths. All were extremely dusty and gravelly causing the trees to have a grey almost silver appearance and were very dangerous particularly on the corners with many riders having ‘moments’ and even falls.
Unfortunately as I had not qualified for the long final I watched Andy and the girls compete in their finals before getting kitted up in the 36 degree heat to head out for my B final race which was to be over the same course that the Women had used earlier. It had been decided if Bryan or myself were beaten by any British girls we were to receive a face full of hummus, and I secretly wanted to see if I could beat the time of Christine Schaffner (91.11) the recently crowned World Champion.
I started strongly picking a very fast loose decent down to #1 and then rode cleanly for most of the course only making one error and a suspect route choice where I rode through an olive grove and got scratched to pieces.
I caught Bryan about half way round and gave it everything trying to pull away, but he managed to stay in touch.

I crossed the line in a right state of exhaustion and dehydration after about 91 mins very pleased but what about the seconds. Well my 91.21 just wasn’t quite enough to beat Christine but I’m happy there is just one women in the world who can beat me !
After a quick trip back to the event centre to pack away the bikes ready for the trip home we were back to the swimming pool which formed the finish for the long race for the event banquet and prize giving, culminating in a midnight swim and various alcholol induced antics.

MTBO WOC 2009

My Gallery of photos taken at the World Mountain Bike Orienteering Championships, Israel 2009

The sprints were held at Neot Kdumim, again near to the event centre. I had drawn a very late start just before the red ‘top 10’ group and was hoping for a good result if I could get pulled along as they came past me. The first couple of controls were easy and I quickly got into the map and then nailed # 3,4,5 but got distracted by the eventual winner Adrian Jackson as he came through on the way to #2 and picked a  duff route choice to #6 , perhaps losing 1 min or so. I then rode really well and started to realise that cutting through carrying the bike off track was an option. I really blasted the last big hill and cut across the open to # where I was caught by Lasse (2nd place) and we both took a daft short cut down some terraced farm land. Lasse didn’t hesitate and jumped 2 metres off a wall, bike in hand. I stopped, saw no alternative and jumped too. I pulled back ahead slightly with another carried shortcut and I sprinted up to the finish to take 44th place just 30 secs off some world ranking points and 6 mins down on the winner, my best international result to date.

The sun was high in the sky at 2.30pm as we left our accomodation to cycle up  to the relay assembly area. The cool breeze and shade near the finish gave a false sense of security the start line being out in the full glare of the sun as we lined up Le Mans style for the sprint to our bikes. Riding first for Team GB I got a cracking start and stayed in the top 3 for the first couple of controls before the strength and speed of the other athletes told and I was overtaken on the next hill by the pack. I stayed in touch through the next couple but lost them when I fluffed a punch and had to go back for it. I then made one bad error taking the wrong single track forcing a climb back up to the control and putting me well down. A bonkers decent down a rocky single track took us down to the TV cameras and another little mistake before I made another huge route choice error. Pulling myself together I started to reel back in the teams in front, passing the Japanese just after the spectator and a small pack in an intricate path network. I gave it all ip the last hill and handed over to Andy Conn. Andy had a solid ride which brought us up a few places. Brian Singleton on anchor was going well before a huge crash saw him lose a few places, so a disappointing result for the mens team.
After the prize giving at the assembly area the mens team however won the race for dinner beating all the other teams back to the event centre. Maybe  this could be a new dicipline next year

Well, we have arrived. A  few problems picking up the hire cars, a  puncture and a car with a tiny boot, which isn’t the best for carrying bikes! We now have an upgrade to a Skoda Roomster – which lives up to its name….

The accommodation is basic but great and the food very plentiful and yummy, if a little odd at times. It is very hot and humid, but not as bad as I feared. We have been out for a shakedown ride after building the bikes and many have had punctures already. The riding is very technical with lots of rocky trails to trip us up, as well as the thorns. I will go out again late this afternoon with the map to do a few controls at race speed to finish tuning in, then its lots of rest and fluid to get ready for the first race the long qualifier tomorrow morning.

I was pleased to get a value of 3 million euros in the Fantasy MTBO team competition (many of the Japanese and Spanish got 1 million euro values) and now have to think about my team for the competition. I’m going to go for youth and ignore the 10 million euro big guns as we only have 30 million to spend !!!