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AUSSIES AT MTB-O WOC
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.
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.
MIDDLE DISTANCE RESULTS Men
1. Adrian Jackson AUS 46.25 2. Ruslan Gritsan RUS 46.59 3. Martin Sevcik CZE 47.50 6. Alex Randall AUS 50.42 41. Anthony Darr AUS 60.43
Women
1. Michaela Gigon AUT 52.12 5. Anna Sheldon AUS 58.38 7. Mary Fien AUS 59.01 13. Carolyn Jackson AUS 62.16
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 AUT 71.41 6. Mary Fien AUS 82.30 10. Anna Sheldon AUS 83.34 11. Carolyn Jackson AUS 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”.
Dari had the unenviable task of being nearly last start. It was a long wait and he rode solidly through most of the course, but also encountered trouble with a part of the map where many riders came unstuck – an unmapped gate across the track made many people think beyond was out of bounds and the circuitous route ensuing cost a lot of time.
Overall, for what was a bit of a mini disaster we had pretty good results – two riders in the top 10. Everyone knows they can ride better and the team is pretty fired up for the remaining races.
WMTBOC MIDDLE DISTANCE Men 21 km, 750 m
1. Ruslan Gritsan RUS 67.02 2. Jaroslav Rygl CZE 68.02 3. Mika Tervala FIN 68.51 8. Adrian Jackson AUS 70.29 61. Alex Randall AUS 84.38 65. Anthony Darr AUS 85.50
Women 17 km, 500 m
1. Michaela Gigon AUT 69.42 2. C. Schaffner-Räber SUI 70.17 3. Ramune Arlauskiene LIT 71.05 4. Marquita Gelderman NZ 72.18 6. Anna Sheldon AUS 72.45 21. Carolyn Jackson AUS 80.38 29. Mary Fien AUS 83.43
There was plenty of yellow on the world champs maps that had to be taken into consideration when planning your route. Here Carolyn makes her way through a recently mowed paddock.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 08, 2005
Long qualification race
QUALIFICATION races are funny things. If you’re a strong rider, then they are a pretty cruisy rest day, and if you’re not, then you have to race hard. For our team it was a pretty cruisy day, especially for the girls where 60 of the 62 riders were to qualify. So that meant they pretty much only had to finish! So the qualifier was really a bit of a non-event and a fairly relaxed day for us.
The courses once again were mighty. The start was in a ski area and was pretty steep. I guess that should pretty much say it all. But to build the picture, the map had 10 metre contours. And it still looked steep! The organisers course profile confirmed what we already knew. This race was going to have lots of climbing. As it turned out quite a bit of it gratuitous.
The general topography was very steep with 300-400 metre height difference. The forest was used for timber and therefore had quite a well established network of forest roads. Dirt mostly and because they got quite a bit of traffic, they contoured around the hills. So the optimum route choice was often 5 times the straight line distance. Are you getting the idea?
Both men and women’s courses were quite long. The men’s heats won in about 100 minutes and the women’s in about 90 minutes. The interesting thing is that the winners, and higher place getters all cruised around at a pretty easy pace. The sort of pace where you keep a good speed, but don’t really push hard.
With the exception of Dari, all Aussies qualified very easily. We were shocked and disappointed to see that Dari came 22nd and missed out by two places. He made a poor route choice to the first check point and the nature of this area meant he lost over 5 minutes. Despite having some of the fastest splits on other legs it was too much to overcome and he just missed out.
Bikes ready for the “Le Mans” relay start.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 09, 2005
The Relay – the Bronze that got away
TODAY was a day that some will choose to forget. The Austrian and Australian womens teams were both disqualified as a result of a mispunched control.
The Austrian first leg rider mispunched a control early in the course. For the Aussies however things unfolded differently. Mary, then Carolyn, had excellent rides, keeping well in contention for a high position. Anna came through the spectator control with 5min of racing to go, in third place with the French rider only 30m behind. Over the last km the gap increased significantly and the result appeared sealed. After Anna lead the team across the line in the Bronze medal position, emotional celebrations were interrupted by the voice on the P.A. system announcing that the Australian team was disqualified. Needless to say they were shattered. Words cannot describe the impact on the Australian women.
All three women had very strong rides and should be proud of their efforts. There is a feeling of loss however that comes from being so close to another prized medal.
The men got off to a solid start, with Dari losing a small amount of time finishing just over 10min behind on the longer than expected course. Alex then had a very good ride on one of the longer splits, bringing the team into the top 10. Adrian also had a good ride, making up time, but no more places. Eventually the men finished in 7th spot, achieving a benchmark performance against some very strong teams.
WMTBOC RELAY Women 13.1 km, 415 m, 10c
1 Germany 158.52 2 Czech Republic 162.08 3 France 164.45
Men 18.8km, 540m, 12c
1 Finland 179.14 2 France 182.55 3 Switzerland 184.17 7 Australia 194.46
Mary Fien during the relay.
Adrian on a nicely mowed part of the Long final.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2005
Long distance final – Bronze for AJ
THE long distance final was the last race in the programme. It was physically and psychologically very tough to have this scheduled after the relay, normally the last race of a world champs. The team also did a great job to get itself together and focussed after the disappointment of the women’s relay. Come Saturday morning at the start everyone was pretty calm and focussed. That is about as calm as one can be before a world champs final.
Once again the courses were very long and tough. The men’s race won in just under 2 hours, which is 10-20 minutes longer than recommended and the women’s in 94 minutes, similar over-long. But given the level of fitness of the Aussies and the warm, humid day this was probably an advantage.
Carolyn was first out of the blocks for us and had one of those days where things just didn’t work. This started on the way to the first check point where a field marked as cultivated (and hence out of bounds) had been harvested and was now cut grass like all the yellow (and hence OK to ride on) surrounding. This confused many riders and the result was most chose just to ride straight through. Technically this probably meant that the whole field could be disqualified, but it was a poor piece of mapping and course setting of which Carolyn went to great lengths to make sure she didn’t ride out of bounds and lost time and rhythm. From there it was too tough to get back into the race and after a fall later in the race retired, thankfully uninjured but disappointed.
Next was Mary. She’d bounced back and simply rode strongly all the way around the course, characteristically making very few errors and ended up bagging an excellent 15th place.
AJ showed a quiet, determined focus, as usual, and set out with good pace. At the first radio he was 2 minutes behind Viktor Korchagin from Russia, fastest at that time, but rode faster over the last part of the course to arrive at the last check point only seconds apart. As it turned out 4 seconds behind the silver medal and 1.40 behind gold. At first AJ was confused as to how he could have lost 2 minutes on an early leg over the other riders, but then noticed that there was a track obscured under the line between check points (see route to control 2 on page 16). The organisers had not broken lines or circles and AJ rode the long way around on this leg, nailed it, but lost a little over 2 minutes and the gold. It was unlucky and frustrating for AJ and a bad technical mistake by the organisers.
Alex had found good speed and rhythm the day before in the relay, having one of the fastest times on what was about the longest course split on the relay. Today he didn’t find the same rhythm and a few route choice errors pushed him out of the medals. Alex’s fitness and form has been great this season in Europe and it was an uncharacteristic ride for him. Having said that he still came 14th in the long final, which is a result few other Australian orienteers have achieved.
Last start by quite a way was Anna. That’s what you get for riding the qualification race so fast Anna! She too was focussed and over the past few days had showed all that she was one of the strongest riders in the field. She rode strongly, but made a few too many errors and then on the way from the 2nd last check point, overcooked a corner on the road had a very heavy fall, picked herself up and pushed on to the finish. Then spent a little bit of time in la la land in the first aid tent (thank you!). But she’s made of tough stuff and was soon back on her feet and getting ready with Mary for the banquet. And an excellent 8th place - and some good grazes for her efforts.
More photos on page 28
WMTBOC LONG RESULTS Men 39.8km 1155m 17c
1. Ruslan Gritsan RUS 117.27 2. Viktor Korchagin RUS 119.06 3. Adrian Jackson AUS 119.10 14. Alex Randall AUS 127.37
Women 27.8km 650m 10c
1. Paivi Tommola FIN 94.31 2. Antje Bornhak GER 95.14 3. Anke Dannowski GER 96.20 8. Anna Sheldon AUS 99.17 15. Mary Fien AUS 105.29
Carolyn Jackson AUS DNF
