World MTBO Championships 2010 – Sprint

The 2010 World MTBO Sprint Championships was held in the old town of Chaves, in Northern Portugal. All competitors were quarantined inside a football stadium 30 minutes before the first start to ensure a fair competition, and the stadium was where the competition would culminate after 25 minutes of frantic racing round the narrow alleys and parks of the town.

There then started a bizarre warm up with most competitors riding round and round the cinder running track that surrounded the pitch. I had a reasonably late start and by the time I came to warm up, a cloud of dust had lifted over the track. Eventually I decided after about 20 minutes that the amount of dust going into my eyes and lungs was probably counter-productive to the warm up, so I stopped and went to the toilets to wash off. Taking my helmet off I looked like a badger: great brown dusty stripes in the pattern of my helmet vents all over my bald head. Someone said I looked like I’d just finished the Paris Roubaix!

We started just outside the stadium with a fairly difficult first control where I lost some time. Although I saw the entrance I should have taken off the street, I thought it looked a little too private so carried on. I soon realised it was the correct way in and turned around, perhaps losing 30 seconds, before I belted across a slippery tiled terrace to get back on track.

From there on I rode fairly well, though possibly taking safe route choices a little too often and losing a few seconds here and there.

I nearly bottled the long flight of steps coming out of number 3, but decided (as there were 3 or 4 half-landings) I would be OK. The head cam footage shows it to be a little scary, but I rode it cleanly. Next we went over the river to a park area for some very fast controls on tight paths, being careful not to corner cut and risk disqualification. There were many marshals lining the route whistles in hand at all the major junctions enabling us to commit flat out to some blind road junctions, but they were also there to make sure no-one cut any corners.

We then had a very picturesque control on an old stone bridge before the climb back up to some controls in the old town walls and castle.

I then made my only other big mistake, accidentally riding to number 1 on the way to 15. I realised fairly late and lost possibly up to a minute but managed not to let it get to me for the remaining controls.

Finally, we came to the area we had looked at the day before on the recce, a huge castle near the stadium. I nailed the route down into the castle moat as several top riders blatted past me. I stopped for perhaps 3 seconds just to make sure but felt very smug descending the metal ramp as they all streamed past.

Disaster nearly struck (as it did Chris BB), but I just missed an open manhole cover in the grass of the moat. I saw it at the last second and swerved round it at speed. I kept up the pace into the last control and got a very good finish time after a fast standing punch on the last control.

I finished with no idea how I had done, but I had enjoyed the event and had a big smile on my face and was full of adrenaline. Although I probably lost 1.30 in mistakes on numbers 1 and 15, I felt I had a good ride and was pleased with the mid table-position of 47th considering, though a top 40 would have been nice.

I rode with a head-cam on and I will try and publish something later tonight if my netbook will process the video.

Results available at http://mtbwoc2010.fpo.pt/images/stories/lists/sprint_final_results.html

WOC 2010 Album click here

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