2005 WORLD MTB-O CHAMPS The stand-out performance of the weekend was Adrian. He won both races, albeit with some small mistakes which he still wants to iron out of his racing. Alex wasn’t far behind and is also riding strongly. The recent arrivals, Mary, Anna, Carolyn and Dari all rode strongly, especially given they were still coming to terms with a new country and suffering from jet lag and the long trip to Europe and on to Zlaty Hory.
A Slovakian Diary The World Mountain Bike Orienteering Championship were held in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia in September 2005. Here is a collection of entries from the team’s web blog with input from Paul Darvodelsky, Anthony Darr and Adrian Jackson. Photos from Paul Darvodelsky. The Long qualification race was held at the Slovakian ski resort, Sachticka.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2005
Czech World Ranking Event THE team came together officially on Friday 26th in Prague. With two huge vans, 10 people (including Kiwi friends) and 9 bikes things were set for the start of our 2005 WOC campaign. The first races were the Czech World Ranking Events (WREs) near the small town of Zlaty Hory, which means ‘gold mountain’. Yes. This was an old gold mining area and, despite the different forest, had many of the same features we are used to around Ballarat and Bendigo. Once again we encountered what we call ‘Polish kilometres’. The middle distance courses were given as 9 km and 8 km for the men and women respectively. With expected winning times of 30 minutes. Except that they had 600-700 metres of climb, so we were all pretty confident that times would be longer. As it turned out they were about 15-16 km with AJ riding 46 minutes and the women closer to one hour. The long courses on Sunday were posted as 17 and 12 km and were 25 and 18 km as recorded on the bikes. These courses too weren’t short of hills. MIDDLE DISTANCE RESULTS Men 1. Adrian Jackson AUS 2. Ruslan Gritsan RUS 3. Martin Sevcik CZE 6. Alex Randall AUS 41. Anthony Darr AUS
46.25 46.59 47.50 50.42 60.43
CLASSIC DISTANCE RESULTS Men 1. Adrian Jackson AUS 87.455 2. Ruslan Gritsan RUS 87.57 3. Jaroslav Rygl CZE 89.42 5. Alex Randall AUS 91.22 25. Anthony Darr AUS 106.32
Women 1. Michaela Gigon 5. Anna Sheldon 7. Mary Fien 13. Carolyn Jackson
52.12 58.38 59.01 62.16
Women 1. Michaela Gigon 6. Mary Fien 10. Anna Sheldon 11. Carolyn Jackson
AUT AUS AUS AUS
AUT AUS AUS AUS
71.41 82.30 83.34 83.41
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 07, 2005
Middle, muddle, mechanicals THE weather for the middle distance race was another perfect Slovakian day. Unfortunately for the Aussies it was a day full of problems. Two great results from Anna (6th) and AJ (8th), but the little bit of luck which you need in any big race wasn’t with us today. Some of the team were probably wishing this was foot-o where you don’t have any gear for things to go wrong with! Carolyn started the day with a very smooth, near perfect ride. Waiting at the finish they managed to overlook her amongst the other supposed stars, many of whom she beat soundly. When she arrived in the finish she was in the top 10 with a very solid time of around 80 minutes. It seemed we were having a good start and all the team was calm and well prepared. But it didn’t stay like that, problems were lurking. Mary was next out and very uncharacteristically made a few errors early in the race and never settled down properly. Then AJ got to the start and before his start time one of his pedals nearly fell apart. He rode the whole race with a pedal which was nearly falling off! Despite this he was first at about the two thirds mark with a 3 minute lead and only came unstuck a few checkpoints later in an area with some vague mapping which he couldn’t work out quickly. Despite this he recovered quickly and was briefly in first place when he finished. But the flying Finns, Mika Tervala and Jussi Makkila were stronger on the day, and then eventual gold and silver medal winners Ruslan Gritsan and Jaroslav Rygl snuck in with strong times. Anna was always going to be our secret bomb. Few knew just how hard she’s worked over the last 6 months and how much she’d improved. And she didn’t disappoint. Like AJ she too was in the lead about two thirds of the way around the course and, like AJ, came unstuck on the same vague tracks. Fortunately, unlike AJ, she didn’t have any mechanical problems. Anna kept her head and rode strongly to the finish for a podium finish. The troubles continued with Alex who had some badly worn bearings in his bike’s rear suspension. Parts arrived today, but too late for this morning’s race. He struggled on the first part of the course with this distraction and never got into a good rhythm to end up with “one of my worst races in recent times”.
The Aussie team in Slovakia: Mary Fien, Alex Randall, Adrian Jackson, Carolyn Jackson, Anna Sheldon. Front: Anthony Darr and Paul Darvoldelsky (team manager). DECEMBER 2005 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 17
