National Champs: Day Three

Autumn has certainly arrived in the Alpine Shire, as the town of Bright had yet another chilly start this morning, with temperatures around 7 degrees at Mystic MTB Park, home of the Subaru MTBA National Mountain Bike Championships.

Today’s schedule was busy, with U19, U23 and Elite women all off and racing at 9am, before Elite and U23 Men at lunch, followed by Masters 1/2 and U19 Men in the afternoon. Plus, the Trials finals were also running, plus Downhill seeding for all grades.

Henderson leads the way

With Bec Henderson and Peta Mullens often being head and shoulders above many elite women (figuratively – Bec is tiny and Peta isn’t that all either), it seemed from the outset that it would be a case of who could win the green and gold jersey from these two. Although Peta was glued to Bec’s wheel for the opening laps, Bec created a gap that Peta just wasn’t able to bridge.

Jenni King was back in third, another remarkable result given she had a broken hip less than a year ago. Behind King, Jenny Fay (or Blair) was in 4th, a brilliant result for the marathon racer. Jodie Willett was back in 5th place.

The U23 race was between Em Parkes and Holly Harris. While a disappointingly small field, the racing was tight! Parkes had over 30 sec on Harris after the first lap, but by race end Harris had shut it down and it finished with a sprint, with Parkes winning the jersey by about a wheel.

In the U19 Megan Williams rode away with the race for her 2nd national title.

McConnell and Trekky race away

The cold cloud lifted soon after the women’s race, and Elite and U23 men were soon pacing around the holding pen waiting for the call up from the commissaire. All eyes were on Dan McConnell. As he’s ranked 3rd in the world, there’s a certain expectation that he’ll be the one to watch.

While it was 2013 XCE World Champ Paul van der Ploeg who lead out the start loop, it was Dan McConnell who popped out of the woods at the end of lap 1, with Brendan “Trekky” Johnston right on his wheel. Both riders looked comfortable, and remarkably at ease for the pace they were moving. Further back it was Cam Ivory and Paul VDP.

That’s how things remained for much of the race, but Ivory slipped back and VDP moved into third, and went about putting more time into Ivory. Mark Tupalski was holding 5th. The talk was on the very front of the race though. Was McConnell towing Trekky? Was Trekky sitting on and biding his time? The two are good friends and training partners in Canberra – but the Championships are a very big race and it would seem unlikely that McConnell would gift the national title.

Word came from the course in the last lap that McConnell had made a gap, and he hit the finish area clear, and with time to high five Bec Henderson and other supporters before he celebrated over the line. Trekky crossed soon after, a triumphant 2nd place.

Paul VDP was next, dishing out high fives on the other side of the finish straight. 4th was closely fought as Mark Tupalski had made up 40 seconds on Cam Ivory in the final lap, but Ivory had enough speed in his legs to hold Tupalski off, with them finishing 4th and 5th respectively.

Scott Bowden delivers a master class

There is no denying that Scott Bowden has been on top of his game for a long time this season. Today was no different. In the U23 men’s race he had a clear lead after the first lap, and a lot of dirt on him. He must have been taking some big risks to gain time, and had crashed hard enough to tear his number plate off. With over 30 seconds lead on Sebastian Jayne and Chris Hamilton after the first lap, Bowden didn’t back off and kept building his lead. Jayne and Hamilton swapped positions until Hamilton eked out a 10-15 sec gap coming into the 4th lap that Jayne could not get back, and they finished in that order.

Jeffries seals the series and the championships

Speedy Merida=Torq racer Liam Jeffries carried on with his winning ways, taking out the U19 national title, to go with his national series win. The whole U19 race was full on, with all the young men racing hard on a course that was showing some serious wear from racing.

Full results for all categories can be found online.

Brosnan leads Downhill seeding

After a day of qualification, Troy Brosnan currently has the fastest time down the steep, messy downhill course at Bright. Connor Fearon is just a bit slower and Dean Lucas is about 6 seconds back. Tracey Hannah is leading the women’s qualification – but we can’t predict champions until everyone is down the hill tomorrow afternoon.