News
World Champs Long Final & relays
Posted: 21/07/10
The MTBO world championships long distance final was held a couple of days after the qualifier close to Montalegre. The courses promised to be tough, physical and technical combined with complex route choices. Weather wise it wasn’t as hot as anticipated, a mild 25° with a cool mountainous breeze.
All the women qualified for the A final, whilst only Andrew Windrum qualified in the men. Beth Clayton, Lucy Harris and Andrew Windrum had starts before 10am due to qualifying for the earlier starts. Emily Benham had been feeling under-the-weather since the middle race on Tuesday, and woke up feeling worse than ever so decided not to race. Lucy Harris was unfortunate to suffer two punctures in quick succession and was forced to retire.
Beth Clayton finished the course in just under 3 hours - the winning time was set by Christine Schaffner SUI in 1h 54m, well over the estimated 90minute winning time.
Andrew Windrum also finished his course, albeit suffering a puncture but was able to fix the problem before continuing.
In the juniors, Helen Clayton finished in 14th, her lowest result of the week, but top performance of the day, while Chris Brand-Barker finished in 35th.
The next day in the relay, Great Britain had entered two men’s teams (one elite and the other ad-hoc), so it was Mark Stodgell and Andy Windrum racing head-to-head on the first leg. Stodgell suffered with the long climbs meaning Windrum took the lead and handed over the B-team ahead of the A. Andy Conn caught up Chris Brand-Barker early on in the course and then had no trouble pulling the A-team back into the lead. Out on the final leg was Ben Plowman and Beth Clayton. The teams finished in 18th and 30th places but the A-team were 13th nation.
For the women, team tactics didn’t pay off, with Helen Clayton fatigued from the Long Final, and Lucy Harris making 10 minutes of mistakes, the team were well behind the leaders at the final changeover. Emily Benham pulled up 4 places on the final leg to bring the team home in 11th - which was a disappointing result considering the potential of the team to have finished in the top 8.
Emily Benham