Mountain Bike Orienteering World Championships
Team GB at the World Mountain Bike \'O\' Champs
Bruce Duncan / 17.07.2006
The 4th World MTBO championships were held last week at Joensuu in Finland under a scorching sun and on many hot and dusty tracks in some fantastic forests.The British team had flown out a week earlier to try and familiarise themselves with the terrain, maps and riding, which is very different from what is available in the UK.
The team were met by 24hr daylight, unusually hot temperatures, and some fantastic training forests. Everyone set about getting their bikes back together after the flight, apart from Bruce Duncan, whose bike had failed to arrive from Edinburgh, arriving only 2 days before the first race after Heather Monro had had ‘words’ with people in Helsinki when she had flown through!!
Training was difficult, people wanted to get used to the riding and maps, but not get too worn out in the high temperatures. But then the competition started, and everyone was ready and raring to go.
Sunday saw the Long Distance qualification races, there were 3 heats in the men’s and 2 in the women’s class. Bruce Duncan had got first start, but tried to ignore this and have a clean steady race to qualify, this wasn’t the case and after some scrappy mistakes he came in and was hovering around the 20th place mark, the cut off, for a while. James Taylor had a similar ride, and just beat Bruce, so also had his fingers crossed. Mark Hayman had a very steady ride and comfortably qualified, as did all the girls.
However there was to be much controversy with the course and map, an obvious route choice went through an out of bound area, but this wasn’t as clear on the maps as maybe it should have been, especially when you are riding very fast on bumpy tracks, so a lot of competitors took this route, only to have their number noted down by a marshal. Some riders were sent back however and escaped disqualification, but others didn’t. There was a jury meeting, and it was decided that those that had ridden through would still be disqualified, which sadly included 2 GB riders, and Andy Simpson made a school boy error and mis-punched, so also knocking him out of the A final.
The next day was the Middle Final (18km), in a very different forest, with few ‘hills’, but many ‘holes’. Bruce Duncan had a really good strong ride, missing a few better route choices, but keeping clam and racing cleanly to secure 29th place, a very pleasing result for him as this was his first world championships. Andy Conn was a few minutes behind in 44th place with Andy Simpson just behind in 47th. Liam and James didn’t have a great time and finished in 67th and 71st. Mark Hayman opted not to ride as he was suffering from a back problem, and wanted to race well in the Long and Relay.
Heather Monro came in in 12th place in the women’s final, a creditable result for her first attempt at the Mountain bike version of a sport she has excelled at for years. Janine finished in 26th place and Karen in 29ths with Charlie in 45th.See All Event Posts
