Long Distance Qualification - Report

Sunday, 9 July 2006

Today was the long distance qualifier and, as usual, not a day without drama.  Only Alex and AJ qualified in the men and Carolyn, of course, qualified comfortably.

My plan was to start steadily and ride my own race.  I did this very well until our 9th check point.  Then I took a poor route and lost about 2-3 minutes stuffing around, even though I was very close to the check point.  Here we had a map change (maps are attached) and I was a little scrappy in the next few, but didn’t make any mistake.  On the way to 13 though I did have a bit of a blow out.  I took the obvious route, although as I rode past some houses, realised that it was marked out of bounds on the map.  Albeit a little unclearly.  By the time I got out of it I’d hit some officials with a sign.  So I asked “am I disqualified?” and they said, not if you go back.  So I rode back straight away and did the leg they way the organisers had intended it.  But lost 2-3 minutes.  At this stage I knew that I would be borderline for qualification for the long but pressed on.  I immediately took the road route to 15 to steady myself and did this quite well.  From 15 you could either go a long way around on the flat or go straight with a very steep, walk only, hill to start.  I chose the round route and it wasn’t good.  I lost about 3 minutes on this and that was that.  I pretty much knew before I hit the finish.  One mistake on this terrain is ok.  Two was a problem, but 3 was too many.  So I ended up 22nd, I think, because we haven’t seen final results.  And many people have been disqualified for riding out of bounds.  Also there will be many protests about this, as you can see, it wasn’t that clear.  Of course it’s easy to see when you sit on your bed afterwards!

The area was quite small.  And interesting in that it had no big hills.  But they are really steep.  And the contours make it very hard to tell what is up and down.  So it was not unusual to expect to come to a big hill and find yourself careering down into a depression.

So I’m feeling a bit disappointed with the day.  It would have been quite easy to qualify, but I didn’t.  Others are far more disappointed and some of the big names of MTBO were disqualified.  Many of them didn’t realise until they got back and saw their results go up.  Or not go up as was the case.  So a bit of a rude shock.  No doubt the team leaders meeting will be entertaining tonight!

Alex and AJ qualified strongly.  Of course.  The Finns won all the heats on their home terrain.  It will be really hard to beat them on this stuff.  It’s just so tricky to keep navigating accurately.  Around our number 9 I could hardly read the map when I was stopped, let alone riding!

Dave was in the same heat as me and only one place behind.  He said it was just too hard for him and he made a few mistakes in the tricky stuff, but showed good speed.  Steve is kicking himself because he rode really fast, but punched a wrong check point at the 2nd.  So he will be double checking control codes from now on.

The punching system they use is emit.  It’s a bit strange because you have to put the emit ‘card’, which is a plate, into a corresponding shape at the check point.  But it’s not symmetrical, so a little trickier and slower than sportident.  But it’s just one of the things you have to live with.

Apart from that there are no real dramas.  We’ve had a bit of trouble with food and had to wait to have breakfast this morning.  Not ideal when you’re heading for a big race.  Then our official food has been meatballs and potatoes for the last few days.  For dinner and lunch.  So we’ve not seen anything green or fruity or the like and are having to organise other meals.  Hopefully the complaints will be loud enough from the teams to get some changes.

The middle distance race is tomorrow.  Hopefully we’ll all ride smoothly.  Speed is a bit of a non-issue here.  You just ride as fast as you can navigate, so that often means, not very fast!

Paul Darvodelsky