Solid performances by both teams in the relay

Saturday, 27 August 2011

Today was another hot day out in the vineyards.  The town of Alonte was set up to provide excellent spectator opportunities with a birds-eye view of the start from a terrace above the street where the riders collected their maps and charged for the bikes, and a spectator loop that came past the finish area, through a covered walk way and then out of town again.   The mens start was, as usual, the most chaotic with riders scrabbling to get their maps on their boards and get away on the bikes:

Chris went out first for the junior boys and, apart from a mistake in the confusion of the vineyards midcourse, he was pleased with his ride.  Tom put in another good performance on the second leg with a very clean ride and sent Marc out in 7th position.  He had a bit of trouble on the first control, but settled into it and was in 6th place at the spectator control with the middle distance champion, Krystof Bogar of the Czech team, hot on his heels.  Through the last loop they were in a head to head race involving elbows and jostling. Bogar managed to sneak ahead by a wheel at the finish line. The Danish junior men won the relay, closely followed by Russia and Finland about 4 minutes down. 

The senior men came 14th overall and were the 11th official team across the line. Steve and Alex both had solid rides with minor mistakes and Oscar stepped up into the senior mens category for the third leg. He rode well, navigated carefully and was pleased with his ride.   

Denmark´s senior mens team (Bjarke Refslund, Lasse Brun Pedersen, Erik Skovgaard Knudsen) transitioned to their second leg rider in 12th place, and impressively worked their way through the field to take the gold medal by a 2 minute margin. It would seem, particularly in the mens relay, there were reasonable differences in the forking. Czech Republic and Finland filled up the medal positions in the mens relay. 

Senior womens relay was won by Switzerland (Maja Rothweiler, Ursina Jäggi, Christina Schaffner) with a thrilled (and a little surprised) Lithuanian team in second and Slovakia in third.  

In the junior women, there was an impressively tight battle the whole race between Russia and Finland. The Russians ended up winning by a 1 second margin!  

Tomorrow is the sprint. Unfortunately, it´ll mean a late night for our keen live results supporters in Aus: first starts at 22:00.  The terrain is described as urban (including town area with narrow street and lanes) and moderately hilly with a network of forest tracks and paths that will demand technical skills.  The expected winning times varies between 18-22 minutes for the junior men to 22-25 minutes for the senior men. With around 20 controls in courses ranging form 7.5km to 9km we are expecting lots of changes of direction and quick decisions.  

Start times: Chris - 14:07, Alex - 14:15, Oscar - 14:23, Tom - 14:33, Marc 15:01, Melanie - 15:10 and Steve 15:11

Marc enjoying the ice-vest and a post-race nunchuck croissant. 

A couple of maps

Friday, 26 August 2011

Long Final - long, hot and hilly - and a 9th in the junior mens for Tom!

Wednesday, 24 August 2011

By Steve Cusworth. 

I´m sure the shattered bodys I watched climbing the streets of Bassano del Grappa in the final of the MTB WOC Long distance final today would agree with the murmorings of it being the hardest long distance race in MTBO history to date! Compiled by a virtaually compulsary route near the end of all courses along the scenic river which involved riding on a track made entirely of concrete slabs of various height and spacings. This caused around 30 of the junior and senior competitors to flat, drawing out the remaining few minutes of their epic course. There were also many more mechanicals with numerour derailleurs hanging limply from their bikes, notably from two highly ranked senior men from other countries.

The event took its toll eqaully on bike and body with the peak temperature of the day rising above 40 degrees. This, together with the steep road climbs on all courses caused many riders to suffer in the conditions. One of our juniors Chris, although being from one of the hottest parts of Australia in QLD, suffered badly from the heat and required medical assistance on course and could not continue. Chris recorded a body temp of over 39 degrees. This shows how hard the Aussie riders were pushing today. He is fine now, back in the accom after a few litres of water was pumped intravenously into his arm, ready to attack the middle distance in a couple of days. Many thanks went out to the local medical team who got our rider back well and safely. Also notably Chris´s bike got a chariot ride back down the mountain in the back of an ambulance, goes to show how much Italians love there bikes!

The tough conditions proved to benifit the other Aussies, with the higlight of the team being first year junior from Tassie Tom, flying into the finish much earlier then our predictions, finishing in an awesome 9^th place. A great effort from a rider that still has 2 more years left in juniors!

The other two juniors both made a few mistakes, though still had strong results, with Oscar finsihing in 22^nd and Marc in 29^th. It will be interesting to see how the Juniors handle the more technical orienteering of the Middle and Sprint. I´m sure they all have the potential, with clean rides to be in the top 10, if not podium contenders.

A very notable performance came from Alex, earning a very rewarding 20th place. As we all know Alex had to take an unexpected lay off from riding a few months ago. He produced a great effort to recapture some of his best form.

Mel had a strong ride in speed and execution, though unforunately made a couple of mistakes on crucial route choises and finishing in 26^th. I´m sure she will be keen to improve on this result during the rest of the week.

A well earned rest day tomorrow for the Aussie team, begining with a long sleep in and a very large serving of pancakes from master chef Lizzie.

For those who were wondering why I was not riding today, I unfortuately snapped my rear derailleur in half in the qualifiaction race the day yesterday. I tried to turn the bike into a single speed though my inexperiance with single speed chain lines ment for a slow repair and ultimatly too much time being lost. I have sourced a new hanger, derailleur and cables and will be competing in the remainign events. (Hopefully with a bit more power in the legs then the riders who competed today).

The view from the old wooden bridge in Bassano del Grappa 

Tom gained a place in the last 2 controls!

The commemorative monument

Monday, 22 August 2011

There are two topics from yesterdays blog entry that I would like to elaborate on today: the commemorative monument and the yellow-orange passages.  

 The Commemorative Monument unveiling was attended by Kay and myself this morning.  I think here pictures will suffice to tell the story:

The monument prior to the grand unveiling....

The mayor of Montecchio Maggiore the process of unveiling the monument wearing a champions jersey that she had just been presented... 

And there it is!!  A lasting piece of evidence of the 2011 MTBO World Championships.

The only thing that pictures can not do justice to in this instance is the speech by the stone maker explaining the significance of the work. I have attempted to summarise the contents of this speech from memory, but cannot pretend to have captured the whole meaning behind the monument. He said that this monument represents the internationally significant event, the partnership, the valleys and hill tops of the Veneto area and the excellent food and wine produced in the region.  

The orange passages were again a source of confusion at the model event again today. The map below shows a network of these passages at 1:7500 scale.  Unfortunately, some of the subtleties were lost on the 1:15000 version of the map. While the map seems fairly straightforward, on the ground the difference between a orange passage and the otherwise very clear rides between grape vines is very confusing. Even when navigating off embankments there were times that, for example, the lower route appeared more clear than when the orange line was mapped above the embankment.  Kay has been promised at the team leaders meeting tonight that the maps for the qualifier and finals will be more accurate.   

Tomorrow is the long qualification for both our senior and riders.  First start is at 09:30 (or 17:30 EST) and there will be live results available here. (Note: this link takes you to the generic website of "Race Centre Suite" who will be providing the live results service, it is unclear if home viewers should be looking at this site or via the MTB WOC 2011 home website)

The teams start times are as follows:

Steven Cusworth - 09:33

Chris Firman  - 09:43

Alex Randell - 09:57

Melanie Simpson - 10:07

Marc Gluskie - 10:41

Oscar Phillips - 10:59

Tom Goddard - 11:23 

Settled into WOC accommodation

Sunday, 21 August 2011

The team has now moved into the WOC accommodation in Montecchio Maggiore (affectionately known as «the M.M. Town») which appears to be the industrial outskirts of the cute old town, Vicenza. We have three apartments with small kitchenettes in each which will provide our chef extraodinaire, Lizzy, with a managerial challenge.

This afternoon/evening drove (the scenic route) out to the model event. We decided that the 55 contour climb was somewhat unnecessary 2 days before the start of WOC and convinced Kay to drive us to the top of the hill to do the upper controls first before a hooning descent into the small town of Nanto.

One interesting change to the mapping standards for this championships is the inclusion of a deeper yellow/orange colour that identifies passages that are permissible to ride. Mostly, these passages occur along the side of cultivated land, which in this area is mostly corn or vineyards. The problem we have encountered so far is that it is difficult to determine where these passages are in reality. Some of them actually appear to have vechile marks, whilst others are grassy and at least one that I found today was overgrown (a confusing situation when is marked as apparently very clear).

The excitement for tomorrow includes another look at the model event and the laying of the commemorative stone of Mountain Bike Orienteering world championships. Kay received an official invitation to the grand event:

«The column with the capital has the logo of MTBO 2011 in full view and it was made with the stone of Vicenza, emphasising the strong relationship between our land and its excellences. It is a hymn to our region in order to promote and increase its values beyond its borders.»

Archeologists in years to come with be thrilled to find this long lasting documentation of this historically significant competition. The author will brave the heat of the day and forfeit her siesta to provide you with photos. 

Needless to say, we are expecting the the coming week to be quite a performance!

Training Part 2

Friday, 19 August 2011

Day three of training and we had been joined by Mel, who has been deported from Norway. We had a short warm up to the start from our accomodation. It began with a fast road descend followed by a rather steep ascent to the starting point. Marc and Oscar won the warm up to the top in convincing fashion! Once we made it to the start we were given two middle distance courses to ride individually. Evererone found parts of the mapping to be rather dubious and the steep hills were hard going. It was extremely hot and a break before starting the second course was very welcome. When we arrived back to the car after the second exercise  Lizzie had cut her finger ioen trying to cut rolls for Lunch. Luckily Mel is a doctor so she was patched up quickly and everything was ok. 

Everyone was feeling pretty tired the next day so we had a rest day in preparation for a race with other countries on Wednesday. The boys headed off for an easy group ride on the Brendola map for a hour and unfortunately Marc broke his derailleur cage and snapped his chain in the same ride. Coffee afterwards in Perarollo was much appreciated by Steve and Alex. Mel also headed to the same map to do some map training the same as the boys had done on teh first training day. 

After the ride everyone headed into Vicenza for a look around at the beautiful buildings and streets. A few checked out the oldest indoor theater in Europe (500 years old) which was rather impressive. The tassie boys all brought postcards for their girlfriends and chilled in air conditioned McDonalds.

On Wednesday we headed to a race put on by the locals. It was held around the vineyards and was extremely hills and at some parts rather confusing. The mercury hit 38 degrees and drinking a lot before, during and after the race was extremely important. After a while riding water bottles were boiling hot and very unpleasant to drink!

Alex finished in 70 minutes as the fastest Aussie with Steve, Oscar and Tom also finishing the full course.   

After the race we downed heaps of water and fruit when we met Lizzie at the finish line and then had a very filling meal of spaghetti at a local restaurant. We went in search of a bike shops after this but it seems to be a public holiday or something during August because we had found a couple but they weren't open until 20th August. We eventually found one and stocked up on everything. Chris purchased a rather pricey derailleur as his was bent and Mel got some slick new riding shoes. 

After this we headed to Longario to where we thought the sprint was to be held but when we headed home discovered the location had been changed! Anyway we had a nice walk around the town and got an ice cream then headed home for a delicious cous-cous meal prepared by Lizzie.  

Gearing up for Italy

Thursday, 28 July 2011

There are only a couple of weeks before the team travels to Vicenza, Italy for the World Championships. This weekend is the last chance for a MTBO competition on home soil.

The whole team has been training very hard and the time has come to start winding down the volume so we peak at just the right time. 

The three Tasmanian JWOCers will contest the Tasmanian MTBO Championships at 4 Springs Lake. Chris will also contest the Queensland MTBO Championships which doubles as a round of the National MTBO Series.  

Steve recently competed in the Red Centre Enduro in Alice Springs, a 5 day, 7 stage race. He finished a very creditable 7th overall and 5th in the Open Class. He had a big tilt at glory on the long 77km stage leading for some 40km before a broken chain cost him valuable time overall. 

Melanie recently competed in the World Cup MTBO Round  in Sweden. 

Mel's report on her World Cup races recently:
Yes, Swedish races were a bit mixed. The middle race was quite good, could have been better. 
The long was a bit of a debarcle for me. It was a mass start and I was kinda in the back of the lead pack up until control 6. On the way to 7 I made a rather large error with a lot of confidence and then when nothing fit it was much harder to work out what the hell was going on!! 
I was riding along a track checking off junctions, the last left hand junction was at the right angle for the junction before mine and then I paused confirmed that there was a depression on my left which was also before my junction, and I few onto the left hand turn just after the depression. 
Basically i had several features that confirmed my turn was the one I took, but the extra bit of information that I didn´t fully check was the direction. Bit of a fail. 
Anyway, had I looked closer the track that I had thought was the "junction before mine" was probably just a short cleared section that looked a bit like a track junction, but wasn`t, and there were two depressions - one before my junction and one just before the junction before mine. 
Very annoyed when I worked it out and stuffed up the next control by taking a bad route choice (that I also executed badly). 
And my results was further compounded by the fact that there was a cross country race going on behind the navigation of Michi up in the lead. 
(Lessons to be learnt here.)

 I even organised a local MTBO event - at a little of 70 degrees north, I think it must be a record. 45 competitors (which I think is a Norwegian record attendance) 

Keep posted! 

Solid performances by both teams in the relay

Saturday, 27 August 2011

Today was another hot day out in the vineyards.  The town of Alonte was set up to provide excellent spectator opportunities with a birds-eye view of the start from a terrace above the street where the riders collected their maps and charged for the bikes, and a spectator loop that came past the finish area, through a covered walk way and then out of town again.   The mens start was, as usual, the most chaotic with riders scrabbling to get their maps on their boards and get away on the bikes:

Chris went out first for the junior boys and, apart from a mistake in the confusion of the vineyards midcourse, he was pleased with his ride.  Tom put in another good performance on the second leg with a very clean ride and sent Marc out in 7th position.  He had a bit of trouble on the first control, but settled into it and was in 6th place at the spectator control with the middle distance champion, Krystof Bogar of the Czech team, hot on his heels.  Through the last loop they were in a head to head race involving elbows and jostling. Bogar managed to sneak ahead by a wheel at the finish line. The Danish junior men won the relay, closely followed by Russia and Finland about 4 minutes down. 

The senior men came 14th overall and were the 11th official team across the line. Steve and Alex both had solid rides with minor mistakes and Oscar stepped up into the senior mens category for the third leg. He rode well, navigated carefully and was pleased with his ride.   

Denmark´s senior mens team (Bjarke Refslund, Lasse Brun Pedersen, Erik Skovgaard Knudsen) transitioned to their second leg rider in 12th place, and impressively worked their way through the field to take the gold medal by a 2 minute margin. It would seem, particularly in the mens relay, there were reasonable differences in the forking. Czech Republic and Finland filled up the medal positions in the mens relay. 

Senior womens relay was won by Switzerland (Maja Rothweiler, Ursina Jäggi, Christina Schaffner) with a thrilled (and a little surprised) Lithuanian team in second and Slovakia in third.  

In the junior women, there was an impressively tight battle the whole race between Russia and Finland. The Russians ended up winning by a 1 second margin!  

Tomorrow is the sprint. Unfortunately, it´ll mean a late night for our keen live results supporters in Aus: first starts at 22:00.  The terrain is described as urban (including town area with narrow street and lanes) and moderately hilly with a network of forest tracks and paths that will demand technical skills.  The expected winning times varies between 18-22 minutes for the junior men to 22-25 minutes for the senior men. With around 20 controls in courses ranging form 7.5km to 9km we are expecting lots of changes of direction and quick decisions.  

Start times: Chris - 14:07, Alex - 14:15, Oscar - 14:23, Tom - 14:33, Marc 15:01, Melanie - 15:10 and Steve 15:11

Marc enjoying the ice-vest and a post-race nunchuck croissant. 

A couple of maps

Friday, 26 August 2011

Long Final - long, hot and hilly - and a 9th in the junior mens for Tom!

Wednesday, 24 August 2011

By Steve Cusworth. 

I´m sure the shattered bodys I watched climbing the streets of Bassano del Grappa in the final of the MTB WOC Long distance final today would agree with the murmorings of it being the hardest long distance race in MTBO history to date! Compiled by a virtaually compulsary route near the end of all courses along the scenic river which involved riding on a track made entirely of concrete slabs of various height and spacings. This caused around 30 of the junior and senior competitors to flat, drawing out the remaining few minutes of their epic course. There were also many more mechanicals with numerour derailleurs hanging limply from their bikes, notably from two highly ranked senior men from other countries.

The event took its toll eqaully on bike and body with the peak temperature of the day rising above 40 degrees. This, together with the steep road climbs on all courses caused many riders to suffer in the conditions. One of our juniors Chris, although being from one of the hottest parts of Australia in QLD, suffered badly from the heat and required medical assistance on course and could not continue. Chris recorded a body temp of over 39 degrees. This shows how hard the Aussie riders were pushing today. He is fine now, back in the accom after a few litres of water was pumped intravenously into his arm, ready to attack the middle distance in a couple of days. Many thanks went out to the local medical team who got our rider back well and safely. Also notably Chris´s bike got a chariot ride back down the mountain in the back of an ambulance, goes to show how much Italians love there bikes!

The tough conditions proved to benifit the other Aussies, with the higlight of the team being first year junior from Tassie Tom, flying into the finish much earlier then our predictions, finishing in an awesome 9^th place. A great effort from a rider that still has 2 more years left in juniors!

The other two juniors both made a few mistakes, though still had strong results, with Oscar finsihing in 22^nd and Marc in 29^th. It will be interesting to see how the Juniors handle the more technical orienteering of the Middle and Sprint. I´m sure they all have the potential, with clean rides to be in the top 10, if not podium contenders.

A very notable performance came from Alex, earning a very rewarding 20th place. As we all know Alex had to take an unexpected lay off from riding a few months ago. He produced a great effort to recapture some of his best form.

Mel had a strong ride in speed and execution, though unforunately made a couple of mistakes on crucial route choises and finishing in 26^th. I´m sure she will be keen to improve on this result during the rest of the week.

A well earned rest day tomorrow for the Aussie team, begining with a long sleep in and a very large serving of pancakes from master chef Lizzie.

For those who were wondering why I was not riding today, I unfortuately snapped my rear derailleur in half in the qualifiaction race the day yesterday. I tried to turn the bike into a single speed though my inexperiance with single speed chain lines ment for a slow repair and ultimatly too much time being lost. I have sourced a new hanger, derailleur and cables and will be competing in the remainign events. (Hopefully with a bit more power in the legs then the riders who competed today).

The view from the old wooden bridge in Bassano del Grappa 

Tom gained a place in the last 2 controls!

The commemorative monument

Monday, 22 August 2011

There are two topics from yesterdays blog entry that I would like to elaborate on today: the commemorative monument and the yellow-orange passages.  

 The Commemorative Monument unveiling was attended by Kay and myself this morning.  I think here pictures will suffice to tell the story:

The monument prior to the grand unveiling....

The mayor of Montecchio Maggiore the process of unveiling the monument wearing a champions jersey that she had just been presented... 

And there it is!!  A lasting piece of evidence of the 2011 MTBO World Championships.

The only thing that pictures can not do justice to in this instance is the speech by the stone maker explaining the significance of the work. I have attempted to summarise the contents of this speech from memory, but cannot pretend to have captured the whole meaning behind the monument. He said that this monument represents the internationally significant event, the partnership, the valleys and hill tops of the Veneto area and the excellent food and wine produced in the region.  

The orange passages were again a source of confusion at the model event again today. The map below shows a network of these passages at 1:7500 scale.  Unfortunately, some of the subtleties were lost on the 1:15000 version of the map. While the map seems fairly straightforward, on the ground the difference between a orange passage and the otherwise very clear rides between grape vines is very confusing. Even when navigating off embankments there were times that, for example, the lower route appeared more clear than when the orange line was mapped above the embankment.  Kay has been promised at the team leaders meeting tonight that the maps for the qualifier and finals will be more accurate.   

Tomorrow is the long qualification for both our senior and riders.  First start is at 09:30 (or 17:30 EST) and there will be live results available here. (Note: this link takes you to the generic website of "Race Centre Suite" who will be providing the live results service, it is unclear if home viewers should be looking at this site or via the MTB WOC 2011 home website)

The teams start times are as follows:

Steven Cusworth - 09:33

Chris Firman  - 09:43

Alex Randell - 09:57

Melanie Simpson - 10:07

Marc Gluskie - 10:41

Oscar Phillips - 10:59

Tom Goddard - 11:23 

Settled into WOC accommodation

Sunday, 21 August 2011

The team has now moved into the WOC accommodation in Montecchio Maggiore (affectionately known as «the M.M. Town») which appears to be the industrial outskirts of the cute old town, Vicenza. We have three apartments with small kitchenettes in each which will provide our chef extraodinaire, Lizzy, with a managerial challenge.

This afternoon/evening drove (the scenic route) out to the model event. We decided that the 55 contour climb was somewhat unnecessary 2 days before the start of WOC and convinced Kay to drive us to the top of the hill to do the upper controls first before a hooning descent into the small town of Nanto.

One interesting change to the mapping standards for this championships is the inclusion of a deeper yellow/orange colour that identifies passages that are permissible to ride. Mostly, these passages occur along the side of cultivated land, which in this area is mostly corn or vineyards. The problem we have encountered so far is that it is difficult to determine where these passages are in reality. Some of them actually appear to have vechile marks, whilst others are grassy and at least one that I found today was overgrown (a confusing situation when is marked as apparently very clear).

The excitement for tomorrow includes another look at the model event and the laying of the commemorative stone of Mountain Bike Orienteering world championships. Kay received an official invitation to the grand event:

«The column with the capital has the logo of MTBO 2011 in full view and it was made with the stone of Vicenza, emphasising the strong relationship between our land and its excellences. It is a hymn to our region in order to promote and increase its values beyond its borders.»

Archeologists in years to come with be thrilled to find this long lasting documentation of this historically significant competition. The author will brave the heat of the day and forfeit her siesta to provide you with photos. 

Needless to say, we are expecting the the coming week to be quite a performance!

Training Part 2

Friday, 19 August 2011

Day three of training and we had been joined by Mel, who has been deported from Norway. We had a short warm up to the start from our accomodation. It began with a fast road descend followed by a rather steep ascent to the starting point. Marc and Oscar won the warm up to the top in convincing fashion! Once we made it to the start we were given two middle distance courses to ride individually. Evererone found parts of the mapping to be rather dubious and the steep hills were hard going. It was extremely hot and a break before starting the second course was very welcome. When we arrived back to the car after the second exercise  Lizzie had cut her finger ioen trying to cut rolls for Lunch. Luckily Mel is a doctor so she was patched up quickly and everything was ok. 

Everyone was feeling pretty tired the next day so we had a rest day in preparation for a race with other countries on Wednesday. The boys headed off for an easy group ride on the Brendola map for a hour and unfortunately Marc broke his derailleur cage and snapped his chain in the same ride. Coffee afterwards in Perarollo was much appreciated by Steve and Alex. Mel also headed to the same map to do some map training the same as the boys had done on teh first training day. 

After the ride everyone headed into Vicenza for a look around at the beautiful buildings and streets. A few checked out the oldest indoor theater in Europe (500 years old) which was rather impressive. The tassie boys all brought postcards for their girlfriends and chilled in air conditioned McDonalds.

On Wednesday we headed to a race put on by the locals. It was held around the vineyards and was extremely hills and at some parts rather confusing. The mercury hit 38 degrees and drinking a lot before, during and after the race was extremely important. After a while riding water bottles were boiling hot and very unpleasant to drink!

Alex finished in 70 minutes as the fastest Aussie with Steve, Oscar and Tom also finishing the full course.   

After the race we downed heaps of water and fruit when we met Lizzie at the finish line and then had a very filling meal of spaghetti at a local restaurant. We went in search of a bike shops after this but it seems to be a public holiday or something during August because we had found a couple but they weren't open until 20th August. We eventually found one and stocked up on everything. Chris purchased a rather pricey derailleur as his was bent and Mel got some slick new riding shoes. 

After this we headed to Longario to where we thought the sprint was to be held but when we headed home discovered the location had been changed! Anyway we had a nice walk around the town and got an ice cream then headed home for a delicious cous-cous meal prepared by Lizzie.  

Gearing up for Italy

Thursday, 28 July 2011

There are only a couple of weeks before the team travels to Vicenza, Italy for the World Championships. This weekend is the last chance for a MTBO competition on home soil.

The whole team has been training very hard and the time has come to start winding down the volume so we peak at just the right time. 

The three Tasmanian JWOCers will contest the Tasmanian MTBO Championships at 4 Springs Lake. Chris will also contest the Queensland MTBO Championships which doubles as a round of the National MTBO Series.  

Steve recently competed in the Red Centre Enduro in Alice Springs, a 5 day, 7 stage race. He finished a very creditable 7th overall and 5th in the Open Class. He had a big tilt at glory on the long 77km stage leading for some 40km before a broken chain cost him valuable time overall. 

Melanie recently competed in the World Cup MTBO Round  in Sweden. 

Mel's report on her World Cup races recently:
Yes, Swedish races were a bit mixed. The middle race was quite good, could have been better. 
The long was a bit of a debarcle for me. It was a mass start and I was kinda in the back of the lead pack up until control 6. On the way to 7 I made a rather large error with a lot of confidence and then when nothing fit it was much harder to work out what the hell was going on!! 
I was riding along a track checking off junctions, the last left hand junction was at the right angle for the junction before mine and then I paused confirmed that there was a depression on my left which was also before my junction, and I few onto the left hand turn just after the depression. 
Basically i had several features that confirmed my turn was the one I took, but the extra bit of information that I didn´t fully check was the direction. Bit of a fail. 
Anyway, had I looked closer the track that I had thought was the "junction before mine" was probably just a short cleared section that looked a bit like a track junction, but wasn`t, and there were two depressions - one before my junction and one just before the junction before mine. 
Very annoyed when I worked it out and stuffed up the next control by taking a bad route choice (that I also executed badly). 
And my results was further compounded by the fact that there was a cross country race going on behind the navigation of Michi up in the lead. 
(Lessons to be learnt here.)

 I even organised a local MTBO event - at a little of 70 degrees north, I think it must be a record. 45 competitors (which I think is a Norwegian record attendance) 

Keep posted!