Crocodile Trophy
Double-victory for Austria
Lisi Hager (AUT) - Translation by Juliane Wisata (AUT/AUS) / 23.10.2010
Completely by surprise, Christoph Tschellnig claimed a Boomerang for Austria. Today's second, Philipp Ludescher, completed the successful day for his home country. Canadian Cory Wallace returned to his well-deserved third spot after two days of bad luck and mechanicals.It's half time at the hardest mountain bike race in the world and to reward the riders for the efforts to far, the easiest stage was scheduled for today: 100 relatively flat kilometres with start and finish in Chillagoe, to be completed by riding a 50km fire trail into one direction and then back. But to compensate for the "easy dash into the bush", the riders faced a fierce head wind on their way back, and temperatures climbed to a cosy 36 degrees.
With the overall leaders being busy observing and minding each other's every move, the opportunity for a new stage winner was there to be taken . To everyone's surprise that one didn't come from the camp of the favourite group of elite road riders. Weekend warrior Christoph Tschellnig (morethanbike) from Lower Austria, who has a full-time job as fitness trainer back home, took the title.
"I blame the three pieces of fish that I had for dinner last night", joked the 25-year old past the finish line. Up until three years ago a dedicated road rider, the now passionate mountain biker called his attack already at kilometre 20 – and was not to be seen any more. Five minutes lead at the turnaround point were enough to withstand Ludescher's attack later on. "It's a shame that I wasn't able to chase him down any more. But it's still great that an Austrian took the stage", said the McSabotage-team racer in a sporting manner after assessing his opponent wrongly.
Tschellnig had reached the finish at Chillagoe after 3:11.26 completely exhausted, however, happy about his 2.20 minute lead. "To be honest, it was my goal to get a top-3 stage result at least once. After I had three flat tires already on the first day, I was aiming for a Boomerang to compensate for the fluff in the general classification. That this dream has come true is just awesome!"
Covered in red sand and sweat, finally, also Cory Wallace was able to smile again. Due to a series of mechanical failures he had lost his spot among the top three and after a strong race returned to his well-deserved third place. "I'm not a threat any more for them in the general classification, so Urs and Bart let me have a go. Let's see if I can ride home some more points in the coming days", said the Kona-rider who hasn't given up his ambitions just yet, despite all the troubles so far.See All Event Posts
