Category: Mountain Biking

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World MTBO Champs – Middle Distance Finals

The women’s World MTBO middle distance championships today produced some very close racing. Multiple World Champion Michaela Gigon taking gold just 15 seconds ahead of Poland’s Anna Kaminska and a further 45 seconds back to Rikke Kornvig from Denmark in third.

All the usual suspects were at the top of the table except for poor Emily Benham from the UK who was forced to abandon after a catastrophic mechanical on the second control. Special mention should go to Anna Fuzy in 5th place another fantastic result for the up and coming Hungarian.

Britain’s Helen Clayton was 39th and Lucy Harris 46th after good solid rides.

The Men’s race produced a more emphatic winner with Finland’s Saarela Samuli taking the title ahead of the Russian veteran Ruslan Gristan. A fantastic ride for Austria’s Tobias Breitshadel and a late mistake by Anton Foliforov stopped a Russian whitewash taking Bronze but with three riders in the top 6 the Russians have now to be the favourites for the relay.

A good ride by the UK’s Ifor Powell gave him 56th Place, mid table.

The action continues tomorrow with the Relay competition, promising exciting racing for the Men’s and Women’s top nations. I expect the Men’s race to be very close between the Finn, Swiss, Czech and Russian teams. The normally dominant Danes seem to be struggling at this World Champions but I’m sure will rise to the challenge and add to the mix. The Women’s race will be close too with again the Swiss, Finn and Czech teams very string this year.

 

 

 

 

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World MTBO Champs – Long Distance Final

Another hot day and tough long courses have produced some dramatic results at the World Mountain Bike Orienteering Championships 2011 Long Distance Final.

In the Women’s Race Denmark’s Rikke Kornvig has produced a huge winning margin of  6 min’s over second place Ingrid Stengard and local Italian Laura ‘superlaura’ Scaravonati in 3rd. Other big names are some 15 –  20 mins behind, the heat and steepness of the terrain taking its toll. In fact some riders took close to 3 hours.

The Mens race: all riders took over two hours to complete their courses but Finland’s Samuli Saarela coped best with the heat and the terrain to take Gold ahead of Denmark’s Erik Skovgaard Knudsen by 4 minutes.

In the Junior Men’s competition the Danes are starting to dominate with a win by Andreas Proschowsky but in the Junior Women’s the Russians are still up front with a Gold and Silver, Svetlana Poverina taking the win.

For the Brits unfortunately Chris Brand Barker did not start after a pre-race mechanical in the Junior Mens competition. Lucy and Em came 20th and 35th after long hot races. Ifor rides this afternoon in the Men’s B final.

Live results available at http://www.racecentersuite.com/Races/Specials/Mtbo2011/web/

 

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MTBO World Champs – Long Qualifiers

With temperatures in the high 30s competitors at the World Mountain Bike Orienteering Championships 2011 have been racing for qualification for tomorrows Long Distance Finals.

In the Men’s Qualifier Britain’s Ifor Powell, even with a good performance, just looks to have missed out by just 1 min being placed 21st in his heat.

In the Womens race solid performances by both Emily and Lucy have got them comfortably into the final being placed 11th and 16th respectively.

In the Junior Men’s Prologue Chris BB was placed 41st.

Tomorrows Long Final looks to be tough if the heat continues, the men’s race having an optimal length of over 35km with 1350 metres of climb.

preliminary results available here http://www.racecentersuite.com/Races/Specials/Mtbo2011/web/ together with splitsbrowser graphs

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Sleepless in the Saddle 2011 – part 2

There weren’t so many riders waiting in the Sleepless in the Saddle change over pen at midnight, many teams taking a break. I went out fairly fast for my 2 back to back night laps, but soon found myself slithering on the rooty sections. I ended up coming off twice, the second time quite spectacularly. I had  just got past 3 slower riders and took too much speed into the corner. My front wheel slipped on a root and over the handlebars I went, blocking the track. My bars were twisted 180 and I lost my water bottle. After that I slowed up a bit and gave a little more respect to the roots.

My lap went OK but I was starting to gag for a drink and was desperate to get some food down me, but with a dry mouth I just couldn’t face it. Eventually I stared to really run out of energy half way round the second of my two laps and had to get some bar down me. I couldn’t eat it all but it gave me enough to drag myself up the final climb and into the finish. For the second half of that lap I was longing for the bottle of strawberry milkshake in the tent, and it tasted just amazing when I flopped onto my sleeping bag at 2.30am.

After a couple of hours of kip, a coffee and bacon roll I felt much better and flew round my next lap. At this point we were lying 4th in the Vets class with the other Cycle Shack team leading, however a Derby Mercury team was just 8 minutes ahead of us. There then started 6 hours of cat and mouse chasing as we slowly ate into their lead, after each lap checking the live results. With a couple hours to go we finally did it, pulling up into third, all four of us giving it everything and holding it to the end. So a great result for Cycle Shack with two teams and a solo singlespeeder on the podium. We even ended up 11th and 19th overall!

Sleepless is a great event, with a fantastic atmosphere and lots of singletrack, thanks to Provelo Support, Singletrack Magazine and all the other sponsors and complete respect for those nutters who go it solo.

My lows: losing my water bottle twice early on in laps and using a baby wipe to clean my teeth.

My highs: a lap just after dawn with the sun rising above the trees and that feeling of crossing the finish line for the last time knowing the pain was about to stop……. Roll on Sleepless 2012

Results tend to take a while to come out, below is a photo of the overall results screen from the finish.

Click to enlarge
Sleepless in the Saddle 2011 click for Photos
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Sleepless in the Saddle 2011 – Midnight hour

Its midnight and I am sat in my tent, perusing some arty photos I’ve just taken of head torches flashing past and carefully stretching tired limbs (and we are not even half way through yet).

I went off second rider in our 4 man Cycle Shack team and put in a fairly solid lap without too much traffic, my second lap was really dusty and dry. Early on I took a fairly big fall after the front wheel washed out beneath me. At the time I had no idea what at happened but picked myself and my water bottle up off the floor and just got going again.

My bike needed a hoover rather than a wash after lap 2 with so much dust. However soon after I finished & got back to team HQ, the sky darken ominously, and then it chucked it down for about 20 minutes, leaving the course a mudbath. Riders were coming in covered in mud with stories of bikes with wheels that simply would not turn.

Luckily for me the course quickly dried and by the time of my third lap it was starting to get faster again. I saw the reason for my crash on lap 2, a root whitch must have been hidden in the dust. I caught it again but luckily this time recovered it. The forest sections required some light by now and the sun set beautifully as I came in to hand over.

The team is currently lying in 13th position and 3rd vets team, but the other Cycle Shack team is flying, leading vets and 5th overall in ‘enthusiast’. Now it is dark we are doubling up, so my next outing will be for two laps. Hopefully this means we’ll get chance to grab some sleep.

   

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Preview – Sleepless in the Saddle.

Saturday afternoon will see me lining up with the Vets Cycleshack team to compete as a team of 4 at Sleepless in the Saddle 2011. Sponsored by Singletrack Magazine, Sleepless is branded the most chilled of the UK’s 24 hour races.

Held at Catton Park, the same venue I raced earlier this year for the Wiggle 6, the course should be fast with lots of singletrack to keep everyone on the toes as the light fades into dusk.

If I can Ill try and blog during the race and perhaps put up a few photos.

More info at http://www.provelosupport.co.uk/?page_id=315