![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/2010pics\/2011\/06\/DSCN0607.jpg\" "\\"World")
<\/a><\/p>\nOn the gun, I jogged as usual sorting my maps out and folding so that on the second loop I would simply have to tear off the top one. I also got a good idea of the route to the first control by the time I got to the bike and so, although being one of the last to get away, stormed through the pack and into about 4th position. The appearance of the first climb though soon had riders (including a couple of women ) storm past me. I got in ‘the zone’ very quickly, was naving really well, and had the confidence to break from the pack on a better route choice towards number one. I rejoined the pack just before the descent even though they were riding faster than me.<\/p>\n
I nearly had a massive accident coming down the steep in and out climb from number one, catching my bar end on a Finnish girls arm on the narrow single track descent, luckily she was not hurt and I held it together in the scenery and got back on the track without further incident.<\/p>\n
On the way to number 3 we had a route choice via a Scout camp. Although the organisers had told the scouts not to place tents in a certain area, they did, and I have some great head cam footage weaving in and out of the tents, kids to one side cheering us on, scout leaders waving their arms in annoyance.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n At the top of the next climb I joined a stream of women riders coming in from a slightly shorter gaffle. I ducked and dived to get past them, only to skid past a junction and let them all past again. Luckily I got them all before the next piece of single track out of number 4 and was able to really let rip along a sublime six inch wide strip of sandy, pine needled heaven that snaked its way through the beautiful forest back towards the more complex path network.<\/p>\n I then caught World Champion lady, Michi Gigon and although I tried a couple times could not get past her as we raced down into the gorge. I eventually dived past when she missed a tiny path. I then was caught on the next climb by Finnish female superstar Marika Hara. I got back in front on the single tracks as we blasted through towards the spectator control but she got me again just before it.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n I did a perfect standing punch at the top of the bridge ramp and gunned it down only to have to hang on the brakes for the spectator control itself skidding a little past it. My map change went well and it was onto the rooty tracks alongside the river, Swede Linus Mood right on my tail.<\/p>\n Together we then caught the Czech girl, Martina, with a sly cut through but Linus’s legs were stronger than mine and he pulled ahead. Just then Michi reappeared and it turned into a all out sprint for the changeover. She got me on the climb out of the penultimate, but those high cadence turbo sessions came into there own as I spun it out under the bridge to the last control.<\/p>\n In the end Marika came in 7th, Linus 8th, me 9th and Michi 10th and Martina Tichovska 11th, all in about 25 seconds. Really exhilarating racing with the two female World Championship medal winners.<\/p>\n I handed over to Emily and Alan who both had solid rides but team GB just don’t have the legs against the big guns from some of the other European countries who have such strength in depth, particularly as I was racing against some of the female riders hence the 9th place,\u00a0but 21st place in the relay is a good performance for us.<\/p>\n I was really pleased to see I was only 5 minutes down on the leaders, especially as I had the longer first gaffle with an extra control. Mass start races with technical navigation seem to really suit me and I always enjoy them. I wore a headcam for the race so now have 50 minutes of film to edit down, but a quick flick through shows some great footage of those gorgeous single tracks at speed.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
![<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The assembly area for the final event, a mixed relay, at the Swedish 2011 World Cup MTBO round was the same as the long race the previous day, centred on a X Country Ski arena providing great views for spectators. As many teams had a long way to travel home and World Masters courses had … <\/p>\nContinue reading “MTBO World Cup Sweden – Relay”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,9,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-competitions","category-mountain-biking-cycling","category-orienteering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2873"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2879,"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2873\/revisions\/2879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/2010pics\/2011\/06\/DSCN0606.jpg\"){kind=link}