El Pres reports from the Aust Champs

Monday, 8 June 2009

Well, Mount Gambier in June was always likely to be cold and wet ... and it lived up to reputation - especially on the last day, when the Middle distance event was run at Mount Richmond (75km east of Mount Gambier in Victoria).  Torrential rain and hailstones doused most riders' warmup activities ... fortunately there was no more hail while riders were on the course - but plenty of rain kept it quite chilly.  Combine that with steep coastal sandhills (and very sandy forest tracks) and everybody had some challenging conditions to master.

The previous couple of days had been wet, but most of the rain stayed away during the actual events, with the sun even peeping through at times during the Long Distance event on Sunday at Caroline Forest, north of Donovans Landing (on the SA side of the border).  Undulating forest roads and some sandy trails through native forest, combined with grassy clearings and even the occasional farm paddock through in for good measure.

But the real surprise was the Sprint event on Saturday - start and finish were in the seaside town of Nelson, and the real complexity in the course was in and around the town's caravan park, and along the bank of the Glenelg River.

The results will be up shortly on the OASA website, I'm sure.  In summary, Adrian Jackson won the M21 Long and Middle (and 4th in the Spring despite breaking his chain), whilst Marquita Gelderman from NZ took a clean sweep in W21.

For NSW, Paul Darvodelsky (M21) finished 3rd in the Sprint, 2nd in the Long and 4th in the Middle; Mel Simpson (W21) was 3rd in the Sprint; Rob Prentice (M50) was 3rd in the Sprint, 2nd in the Long and 3rd in the Middle; and I managed 2nd in the Sprint in M40.

Next year the Australian Champs will be in Central Victoria - hope to see more of you there!

Cheers
El Pres