2011 Archives
Solid performances by both teams in the relay Saturday, 27 August 2011
Middle final and another top 10 for Tom Friday, 26 August 2011
A couple of maps Friday, 26 August 2011
Middle Distance Start Times Thursday, 25 August 2011
Long Final - long, hot and hilly - and a 9th in the junior mens for Tom! Wednesday, 24 August 2011
Quick summary of the long qualification / prologe race. Tuesday, 23 August 2011
The commemorative monument Monday, 22 August 2011
Report from the team coach Sunday, 21 August 2011
Settled into WOC accommodation Sunday, 21 August 2011
Photos Saturday, 20 August 2011
Training Part 2 Friday, 19 August 2011
Training Part 1 Friday, 19 August 2011
Gearing up for Italy Thursday, 28 July 2011 Gearing up for Italy

Quick summary of the long qualification / prologe race.

Tuesday, 23 August 2011

Today has been a long day – the qualification races in the morning, bike part shopping, opening parade and performances and bike phaffing in the evening.  So todays blog is short and bland summary of the races, without the spice of the opening ceremony.  However, before I dive into that, I´d like to say thanks to all those who have written in our guest book, it is much appreciated (particularly the words of wisdom from great-grandpa Darvo).

In the mens 3 heats were riden for the 95 riders, and the top 60 (well... 62, see below) will be riding the final tomorrow.  Alex rode comfortably into the final, placing 10th in his heat in a time of 93:01.  His heat was won by Erik Skovgaard Knudsen of Denmark (81:05).  Unfortunately, Steve had mechanical problems and was not able to finish the qualifying race.  He is of course disappointed not to be in the final, however not too disappointed about missing what is likely to be a super-long, hilly, hot long distance.  Reigning long distance champion, Anton Foliforov, also sustained mechanical problems and will not be riding tomorrow.

Given there is only 56 women competing this year, the «qualification race» simply determines our start positions, and with the long final tomorrow there were lot of us who were taking it fairly easy.  I had a clean ride appart from one small error that high-lighted a rather major mapping/organisation error – I had missed a junction from a large track to a small track and when I realised my mistake it was more efficient to take the sealed road around, or at least that was how it was mapped.  Along with 3 other male riders, I shortly found myself on the wrong side of a very large, very solid gate with the owner of the unmapped house (and gate) shaking his head at us from the right side of the gate.  We all then retraced our steps and found that small track junction and subsequently the control. 

This error has lead to 2 appeals from riders who missed out on spots in the mens final becuase this discrepency. Therefore, there will be 62 starters in the A-final of the mens race. 

In the junior classes today´s race was a «prologue» rather than a «qualification» and, like the womens race, it determines their start order.  Chris and Marc had strong, mostly clean rides and placed 5th and 12th respectively.   All of the junior boys have improved immensely in the past year and we are looking forward to see how they go in the finals.  Oscar accidentally rode from controll 9 to 11 (controls 9, 10 and 11 were more or less in a straight line) and has therefore miss-punched, however control 10 was only minimally out of his way and he would have come with quite competitive time. Tom also rode strongly, but had a mistake early on and again later in the course which has cost him time.

1. Rasmus Sørgaard (DEN) 56:42

2. Alexey Terekhov (RUS) 59:42

3. Andreas Bergmann (DEN) 61:39

5. Chris Firman (AUS) 63:13

12. Marc Gluskie (AUS) 67:44

45. Tom Goddard (AUS) 80:30

Racing starts again at 09:30 local time tomorrow (which is still 17:30 EST).  The courses are roughly 50% longer in both distance and climb for each of the classes.  Predictions are that the winning times will be longer than expected, potentionally substatially longer.  Starting times for the Aussie team are below:

Oscar Phillips – 09:43

Tom Goddard – 10:19

Melanie Simpson – 10:36

Alex Randall – 11:18

Marc Gluskie – 11:55

Chris Firman – 12:19

 Finally, the dreamteam competition is on again this year: www.michigigon.at/dreamteam. Entries due before 10am Italian time tomorrow, in case anyone familiar with the process (or curious enough to try) wants to participate.