The Australian 2010 MTBO Team:

Men: Steven Cusworth, Grant Lebbink, Adrian Jackson, Alex Randall

Women: Mary Fien, Melanie Simpson

And Australia´s first ever junior MTBO team (only junior men for 2010): Chris Firman, Marc Gluskie, Luke Polland

Officials: Kay Haasma (coach),Brihony Lebbink (team assistance)

2010 Archives
Junior men finish 5th in the relay Monday, 19 July 2010
Long Final Saturday, 17 July 2010
JWOC Middle Final and WOC Long Qualification Thursday, 15 July 2010
Middle Distance Photos Thursday, 15 July 2010
Middle distance final Wednesday, 14 July 2010
Photos and maps from the sprint Tuesday, 13 July 2010 Some photos of the sprint and copies of the maps can be found via the official website...
Sprint Gold from AJ Monday, 12 July 2010
World Champion, again! Monday, 12 July 2010
WOC starts tomorrow! Sunday, 11 July 2010
Anecdotes from the team Thursday, 8 July 2010
More about the races... Wednesday, 7 July 2010 A summary of how the Aussie team did and what they thought aboud the races.
And training continues... Wednesday, 7 July 2010 More about the Aussie team training camp in stinking hot Portugal.
Training camp begins Monday, 5 July 2010 Now all the Australian team has safely arrived and got their first taste of Portuguese terrain.
Less that a fortnight to go!! Monday, 28 June 2010 With less than a fortnight to go, the Australian team has begun arriving in Europe and will be meeting up next weekend for some warm up races in Portugal.
Long and Middle distance races: Gdansk Wednesday, 9 June 2010 Melanie´s wrap up of World cup round two held in Gdansk, Poland.
Round two of the World MTBO Cup: Gdansk, Poland Friday, 4 June 2010 The second round of the 2010 MTBO world cup begins tomorrow in the forests around Gdansk, Poland.
Melanie Simpson Saturday, 29 May 2010
World ranking events in Denmark Tuesday, 25 May 2010 Melanie´s experiences at the recent WREs in Denmark.
Welcome to the blog of the 2010 Australian MTBO team Monday, 17 May 2010

Round two of the World MTBO Cup: Gdansk, Poland

Friday, 4 June 2010

The second round of the MTBO World Cup commences tomorrow in Gdansk, Poland.  This event is being combined with the World Masters Championships and a European Junior and Youth Cups (youth being under 17's and, yes, there are enough riders of this age to have a European Cup!).  Today's sprint race marked the first day of competition for these latter classes.  However, for those riding in the World Cup (ie M21E and W21E) the sprint was a fun prologue, and probably just as well for the safety of the hundreds of locals that were around the park (today was a beautifully sunny public holiday in Poland and I think most of Gdansk was enjoying the park).

In the women's course we had an optimal route of 6.3km, 10metres elevation and 22 controls!  Hectic fun.  Appart from dodging grandparents, dogs, children and prams there was a dense network of tracks to negotiate in a mixture of open and forested areas.  I went out with the aim of trying to maintain control of my riding speed and navigation and with the exceptions of controls 13 and 14 I was happy with my ride. I am only left wondering how much I could have pushed the pace and still remained in control, something I can never quite know. (I will again scan in some maps early next week) Results.

Tomorrow the serious races start for us with the long distance - I am the first female to start at 10:01 (18:01 EST, and I believe there may be live result?).  Presuming the area is similar to the model event there are some fast and indistinct tracks and small but steep climbs.  There are also some very slow, leaf littered tracks which I'll be trying to avoid riding up if it is feasible! 

The events website is well set out if you are looking for further information about the races or results. 

The curious fact of the day: There is more alcohol available for purchase in a petrol station in Poland than there is food... something I discovered when trying to shop for food on a public holiday (I didn't realise it was going to be a holiday)!