Relays. Some days are better than otters
Saturday, 15 July 2006
We didn’t think it was possible, but the
relay had even more difficult terrain than we’d encountered so far. The map is posted in the gallery.
After the very long, long in which Paul
didn’t ride and Alex ended up taking it a bit easier after an early mistake, we
thought this would be a good start for us.
Both Paul and Alex were relatively fresh and raring to go for the
relays. All three had ridden without big
mistakes in the complex middle distance terrain and were confidently looking
forward to the challenge in the relay.
Paul had even found what he suspected, and turned out to be, the first
and 2nd relay check points out in the forest when riding parts of
the B-Final.
But it was not to be. In fact the day turned from bad to worse, to
laughable as we managed to find new and inventive ways to DNF. Out of 6 riders in two Aussie teams 4 of us
didn’t finish. At this point it’s
important to say that Carolyn and Steven were the riders who finished.
So what happened?
Paul started strongly on a medium length
split and rode with only a few small mistakes.
He came back 20th, but the courses were split with up to 5
minutes difference, and we were only behind 10th by about 2 minutes.
Relay confusion
The problem was the 5th check
point. We had resolved as a team to
check our codes carefully. Paul did this religiously, but
mis-read 338 which he found, as 335, which he should have found. The offending check point is in the picture
below. Number 329 on the lake was common
and then it split to the three. We were not happy with the closeness of the check points or the numbers and their placement on the map, but there was nothing we could do after the fact.
Alex went out without knowing but Paul was
sent to what they call the ‘cry wall’ which we got to know as the ‘wailing wall’. The organisers confirmed our worst fears –
that Paul had mis-punched and that we were out of the race. Fortunately the organisers were very slow at
stopping disqualified teams and we all got to ride before they started stopping
teams go out.
Alex also raced very well, only dropping a
minute or so on the flying Mika Tervala.
He pulled us up to 7th place.
At least notionally. But then
when Paul went to apologise he found that Alex had mis-punched 3 check points
and one of these didn’t have the verification pin prick in the back-up
paper. So he too had DNF’ed. This was mostly a feature of the emit system
used for punching. It’s far harder to
use for MTBO and the card must be put into the check point the right way
up. It seems Alex had put it in upside
down, and it didn’t register or mark the paper.
As a result of all the problems at this WOC the MTBO Commission meeting
Thursday has resolved that EMIT should not be used for MTBO major events any
more.
This left AJ to race. Adrian
knew that our team had DNF’ed but fortunately got out on the course before the
organisers starting stopping teams. As
usual he raced fast and sure and had a great ride, bringing the team up to 4th
place. (One has to wonder what other riders wonder when someone like AJ catches
them?) Which the finish announcer called
briefly, then quickly added that Australia was disqualified. Then it transpired that AJ too had missed a
check point at the same place I did. He
found 335 instead of 337, although, in fairness, I’m sure he would have checked
his codes more carefully if he knew we were still in the race. So I guess you could say we showed great
potential, but didn’t really get there.
In the 2nd team, which quickly
became our only team in the race officially, Steve also rode really well on
first, finishing about 2 minutes behind Paul, on a long split. Carolyn rode really well on what was a long
course for women, at one point catching the New Zealand team. Dave went out but he too had trouble in some
of the most detailed parts of the map and punched a wrong check point. Both teams DNF’ed in the one race. We’re still scratching our heads in disbelief
too. Especially after being 4th
fastest.
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