World Mountain Bike Championships Day 1

 

Tuesday 4 September

Cross-Country Relay Race

Report & Images: Joolze Dymond

Ian Bibby shows the intensity which helped the GB team to a strong ride in the relay

With weather in Fort William being its usual flippant self - varying from blazing summer sun to overcast misty rain - odds were that today, the first day of racing would of course be welcomed in with a blast of the liquid that eventually goes into making whisky?. And it was.

The opening race of the World Championships kicked off this afternoon, with a fantastic showing by team GB: the spectators that had made the effort to check out the first day's activity, couldn't have wished for any more in terms of seat of the pants action and real nail biting finishes.

Starting at 1.30pm, 15 Nations lined up to take part in the relay, fielding four riders, one of whom had to be female. Team GB had a line-up of under 23 Ian Bibby, Junior Alex Paton, Elite Ian Wilkinson and Elite woman Jenny Copnall. As defending champions the Swiss team including, Florian Vogel, Thomas Litscher and Petra Henzi, were the ones, on paper at the least, to beat.

Ian Bibby was our lead man, and the riders set of en-mass, to tackle the newly revised XC course: just under 9km lay in wait, with some tough climbing and fast technical descents to keep the riders and the spectators entertained along the way and decide the first of many World Championship titles.

The first lap was slightly shorter than the remaining 3 and the Swiss, lead out by Vogel, did as expected and came home first, with Germany picking up second close behind, then to the cheers of the crowds, GB rider Bibby burst into view having secured a cracking 3rd place, after starting on the second row. As Bibby passed the 'baton' onto teammate Paton, the pressure was on, as close behind, were the Polish, Czech Republic and the Italians.

Ian Bibby explained his lap to me later:

"Yeah I really, really enjoyed that it was good fun, really hard though. I was on the second row at the start, I had a really good start and by the climb I was in 3rd. I got on Vogel's wheel stayed there till it flattened out a bit and got in with a Czech and a German. I dropped to about 5th on the final climb got up to 4th coming into the singletrack. On the descent I was getting held up quite a bit, so on the transition section I managed to get past the Czech guy, dropped him on the decent, caught the German in 3rd managed to get past him on a rocky section and I got 10secs coming out of the descent and was riding McKenzie road on my own, but the guys behind me were working together and they nearly caught me on the final climb near the arena. I managed to make a bit more time on the descent and got back in 3rd."

Alex Paton sets off on his lap (left) - whilst hed then hands over to Wilko for the third lap (right)

 

First reports were that Paton had lost a couple of places on the climb, but by the end of the second lap, with the Swiss once more coming home in 1st to hand over to female rider Petra Henzi, all eyes were on who would come home in 3rd and to the delight of the crowd, Paton had pulled out a blinder, coming home after a tough lap in bronze position, before hading onto next man out Ian Wilkinson.

Alex was delighted to have ridden such a level lap, keeping his head and not panicking when he was caught, as he told me later:

"That was amazing, just people everywhere cheering you on. I got caught on the climb, about 3 people came past me there, I kept it steady at my own pace, I wasn't worried about it, then caught 2 on the descent and caught the other one along McKenzie road. It's gone really well, I'm really happy with how my lap went."

Just over 23 minutes later and the crowd went even more wild as our man in red, white and blue, came bounding into view, clear of the rest of the pack to put GB in 1st spot going into the final lap. By this time the pre race favourites Switzerland had slipped to 5th, with Germany clinging onto 2nd and Italy 3rd and the crowds held their breath with the hope that we might kick off the champs with a medal.

Coming into the change area Ian Wilkinson led the race as the scoreboard reflects - the effort of his ride shows clearly on his face moments later

Speaking afterwards, Ian Wilkinson said:

"The boys set that up for me, Bibs did a flyer against some of those elite men and he came back 3rd and Paton did another blinding ride again. I just got mixed up with who was out there and just slipped past to get in front."

Last man, or really woman, off for GB, was current National Champion Jenny Copnall and she went out in a position not envied by many with the weight of the nation on her shoulders. With classy elite men in the chasing groups, such as Adam Craig and Nino Schurter, to name just two, we knew that Jenny would have a tough fight on her hands to keep the GB medal hopes alive.

Jenny Copnall shares a joke with Helen Mortimer as she waits to start her ride - the TV crews look on

Wilko roars into the arena - then hands over to Jenny, who had to tackle "mission impossible"

After 1 hr and 33mins or racing it was all over, with some fantastic last minute surges and some of the closest racing we've seen for a while in relay racing and GB were in the thick of the action all the way, much to the delight of Team manager Helen Mortimer.

Switzerland put in a classy final lap to pull it out of the bag once more, taking the relay World Championship for the second and year and starting their assault on the week as they mean to go on. Poland were delighted to take a well earned sliver just 49 secs adrift, with a surprise result in 3rd as the USA went from 2nd to last on the final lap to take the final podium position after a brilliant ride by Adam Craig. GB's Jenny rode a cracking lap, but had to concede a few places to finally bring the GB team home in 9th spot.

The Swiss come in to claim the gold

Ian Wilkinson summed it up: "Jenny had a right tough job really, with all the elite men chasing her. She had the toughest job. Superb outing for the team though, and the crowds were excellent."

Helen Mortimer was clearly pleased with the result and the performance by the team:

"That was fantastic we couldn't have asked for anything better, we ended up riding three quarters of the race in the top 3 and to pull into 1st on the 3rd lap, was excellent. It's a massive boost for the team, it goes to show that the work that coaches Phil Dixon, Matt Ellis and myself have put in on the mountain bike programme is starting to pay out and I think it goes to show that we have the talent."

"It was always a bit of a lottery whenever you send out your woman rider in the relay, we all have to field an elite, under 23, junior and woman, and it doesn't matter what order you send them out, they all ride their best and that's all we can ask for. There were some very different approaches to this race, take the USA, they sent there woman first. But to be honest this result for us just shows the strength of the team really, Jenny did a good ride, but it was tough coming against riders such as Adam Craig, who's top 5 in the World Cups in seniors, who are breathing down your neck riding you down. She did a good job and I think it'll set her up well for Saturday."

Jenny had a tough job, and one which she didn't take lightly:

"I felt under a lot of pressure. I went as hard as I could and to be honest I had a pretty clean lap, so I don't have any complaints. Obviously because I was in the lead I went off fast and blew a bit towards the end I'm sure. I was on the rivet at the end but you have to be. I had to go off fast because I had to try and hold them off. Sabrine and Eva caught me and we all rode together to the top of the climb and we were all pacing each other and then of course the guys start coming by and I think all 3 of us realised we weren't gonna catch them back up again when the guys came past us. "

As team coach Phil Dixon told me later, "We can't expect anymore from the riders than what they did and look what they did, they were up there with the best, it was excellent".

Perhaps it was not the dream outcome, but all the team rode a cracking race to show all their hard work is certainly paying off. The junior and under 23 men's races look particularly exciting, but team morale is clearly high across all categories.

 

Results

1 Switzerland (Vogel, Litscher, Henzi, Schurter) 1:33:36
2 Poland (Karczynski, Brzozka,Wloszczowska, Batek) 1:34:25
3 USA (Gould, Gilmour, Schultz, Craig) 1:34:45
4 France 1:35:21
5 Germany 1:35:29
6 Czech Republic 1:35:38
7 Italy 1:35:42
8 Russian Federation 1:35:46
9 Great Britain 1:36:30
10 Ukraine 1:38:48
11 Netherlands 1:39:12
12 Spain 1:39:43
13 Japan 1:41:43
14 New Zealand 1:43:33
15 Israel 1:46:02

And Finally......

 

Two intrepid men set out for Scotland last week with the aim of setting the crowds alight with their wit, knowledge, tension building commentaries and all round mic-slick performances. Yep, Dan and Chris have arrived at the arena and we've had a camera trained on them to see what they've been up to.

 

Below left, Dan has come up with his own answer to the midges - or have the midges come upwith their answer to Dan? Later the verbally gifted pair could be seen mingling with the crowd and soaking up the day one atmosphere. Is that the GB Team Lear-jet Dan has spotted passing over - or is he just asleep?