No cars were required to get to the start of the WOC middle race as Ben Shemen forest is adjacent to the event centre. The heat on the way up to the start was intense, particularly on a climb in the open, but the organisers had kindly laid on chilled bottles of water that soon brought things under control.
\nLucy and I got interviewed by local TV before the start which was a great way of calming the nerves. The lone Chinese competitor Zing Li (part of my Fantasy WOC team) started just before me, but I wondered on the way to number 1 that perhaps this might not have been a good buy as I passed her, this being her first international event.
\nI nailed the first 2 controls but got confused in the miriad of singletracks and lost a couple of minutes on the way to number 3. From then on I had a good ride and really attacked the climbs, trying to keep the control flow going in the complex track network. There were some good route choice legs but as we don’t get our maps back till after the relay I haven’t yet reviewed them.
\nThe last few controls were just to get us back to the finish area near to a swimming pool and involved little navigation, they were however all in direct sun. The sweat poured off me as a gave it everything trying to keep in front of an Italian rider, who finally caught me just before the line. I had an early start so I then had to watch the results for 2 hours to see how my time stacked up against the other 75 riders.
\nZing Li’s plucky ride finished with all the teams cheering her in (unfortunatley she was timed-out, so no fantasy points for me), just before Andy Conn came into the finish straight. I knew it was going to be close between us from my watch but the final result showed I was 54th pipping, Andy by just 6 seconds.
\nAfter the disappointment of yesterday I feel really positive going forward to the relay on Wednesday where I will be riding first leg for team GB in the mass start. The teams other news is Em Benhams fantastic 8th place in the womens race, only a couple of minutes off a podium place.
\nThe event website has videos of todays and yesterdays action that give a really good feel of the event. \u00a0
\nhttp:\/\/www.nivut.org.il\/mtbo\/Photos.aspx<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
No cars were required to get to the start of the WOC middle race as Ben Shemen forest is adjacent to the event centre. The heat on the way up to the start was intense, particularly on a climb in the open, but the organisers had kindly laid on chilled bottles of water that soon … <\/p>\n