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

Training camp begins

Monday, 5 July 2010

Before I continue, we would like to congratulate those involved with the selection trials earlier this year.   The general consensus is that the areas we have seen so far in Portugal are remarkably similar to Jenolan East.  Well chosen!

The team arrives... mostly
We all (expect Luke and Mary's bike, see below) met up on Friday evening at the camping ground near Chaves where we will be staying some cosy bungalows for the next week.  Chaves is a smallish town, but has an enormous supermarket and a reasonably bike shop, so the basics are covered.  The campgroud is good, although somewhat particular about each person carrying an identification card to make sure we are not trespassing into the campground.

Luke has been travelling through Spain for the last couple of weeks and learnt the hard way that some European trains will not allow bikes to be taken on board.  Even once packed.   He rang on Friday morning to let us know that he was still in Barcelona and had mananged to book a sequence of buses that would have him arriving in Chaves late on Saturday night.  A good lesson for all travelling with bikes.  To our pleasant surprise he rang at about 7pm on Saturday to say that he'd found an earlier bus and was in Chaves already.   

Mary's bike is currently waiting for the customs officials in Porto to feel so inclined to sign it out.  She has been road cycling around Italy and France in the last weeks and had her mtb sent by airfreight.  Unfortunately, British Airways decided to send it later than expected and it arrived in Lisbon some hours after she drove northwards. 

And the terrain and races?
The last two days have been a couple local races.  There are several of the international teams, including the Danes, German, Russians and Poles, using this as a way of seeing a bit of the local terrain.   It has been hot, steep and rocky.  As advertised.  The results are not at my disposal right now, so I'll write more on that soon.  Mary was lucky enough to hire a bike (of sorts) and got to experience v-brakes, cheap gearing and platform pedals.  Steve, whos bike was somewhat worse for wear after the plane trip, had a bit of tumble and broke his seat.  He is patiently waiting for the internet so that he can by replacement bits and pieces...