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

JWOC Middle Final and WOC Long Qualification

Thursday, 15 July 2010

Today saw the JWOC classes have their re-run of the middle distance final after the cancellation of the courses yesterday due to a misplaced control.  Our Junior Men all had pleasing races with Chris finishing 28th and Luke and Marc finishing 39th and 40th respectively.  Chris said his race was fairly clean and mistake free.  Luke and Marc both made a few small errors, but were still quite happy with their performances in their second hard day of competition in a row.  The start order for the Long distance final on Friday for the Junior classes will be reverse order from the Middle distance results today.

In the WOC classes Adrian, Stephen and Alex all finished in the top 10 in their heats, but Grant missed out on making the A final after finishing 24th.  Adrian rode a quick pace for around 3/4 of the course before easing off to save energy for the tough race on Friday.  Stephen had a clean race and was close behind in 10th position in a closely packed A heat.  Alex had a good race despite not feeling 100% physically and finished in 10th position also.  Grant rued a late course error and a poor route choice which ended up costing him a spot in the top 20 in his heat.

The drama of the day came from the WOC women, with 2 competitors having to be ambulanced off the course after bad crashes on the steep rocky tracks.  Melanie along with Anke Dannowski (Germany) stopped to help the most seriously injured of the women for more than 40 minutes.  The Czech competitor was very seriously injured and has been airlifted to Porto and is expected to be operated on tonight for a broken spine.  Mel otherwise had a clean ride, although rode very gingerly downhill. Mary tried to conserve as much energy as possible in the steep terrain and was happy with her ride and time.

Results

Junior Men
1. Pekka Niemi   FIN 49:47
2. Krystof Bogar  CZE 50:53
3. Mikhail Utkin  RUS 51:16
28. Chris Firman  AUS 58:44
39. Luke Poland  AUS 65:55
40. Marc Gluskie  AUS 66:10

Junior Women
1. Olga Vinogradova RUS 49:34
2. Barbro Kvale  NOR 51:58
3. Magdalena Seifertova CZE 52:51

WOC Men Heat A
1. Kevin Haselsberger AUT 73:03
2. Davide Machado  POR 75:01
3. Andrey Kornev  RUS 76:19
7. Adrian Jackson  AUS 76:35
10. Steven Cusworth AUS 78:05

WOC Men Heat B
1. Anton Foliforov  RUS 73:44
2. Juho Saarinen  FIN 76:55
3. Clement Souvray  FRA 78:25
10. Alex Randall  AUS 82:02

WOC Men Heat C
1. Erik Skovgaard Knudsen DEN 76:55
2. Luca Dallavalle   ITA 79:08
3. Marek Pospisek   CZE 80:47
24. Grant Lebbink   AUS 96:06

WOC Women Heat A
1. Martina Tichovska CZE 77:18
2. Maja Rothweiler  SWI 79:48
3. Micheala Gigon  AUT 80:25
29. Melanie Simpson AUS 136:40*
*Awaiting decision on time adjustment for stopping for injured competitor

WOC Women Heat B
1. Ksenia Chernykh  RUS 82:28
2. Christine Schaffner SWI 83:53
3. Line Brun Stallknecht DEN 87:26
15. Mary Fien  AUS 94:34