August 19/01 12:19 pm - Summer Games XC Story, Mexico Track World Cup Results

Posted by Editor on 08/19/01
 

Canada Summer Games XC Story

After a week of road racing at the Summer Games it was the turn of the mountain bikers to strut their stuff, and Ontario led the charge, taking both the men's and women's cross-country titles. Rod Smit and Sue Trimble used identical tactics - go to the front and never look back.

Trimble and a pair of BC riders - Sandra Walter and Erica Drew - already had a 20 second gap on chasers 2 kilometres into the first lap (of 3) on the 6 kilometre circuit at the Boler ski hill. The course was praised by mountain bikers and roadies alike. It did not have a single main climb, but the constant short power climbs meant that there was nowhere to rest.

The front three medal positions in the women's race looked set, when Trimble dropped her two companions on the second lap. "I saw Sandra was getting tired so I pushed it."

Walter agreed: "It was a really fast start. I wanted to lead so I went to the front for most of the first lap, then Sue put the hammer down. I backed off a bit in the second lap and hoped to recover so that I could chase in the third. I think I was gaining at the end, but it wasn't enough."

Walter dropped Drew and settled solidly into second place, while Drew looked uncatchable by chasing Ontario riders Melissa Lunstead and Catherine Vipond as the riders started their third lap.

Unfortunately for Drew, disaster struck on the final lap. "I jumped a log and went down, and my (rear derailleur) cable popped out (of its stop). I only had 3 gears at the front (the chain stayed in the smallest cog at the rear) so I had to run the hills on the last lap. I lost some focus as well when it happened."

Lunstead was the beneficiary of Drew's misfortune, and passed her on the final climb. "I didn't know, so it was a surprise when I came up on her. She was running so I was able to get by."

Drew managed to hold on for fourth, with Vipond finishing 5th.

The men's 4 lap race had no such dramatic last lap changes, just high speed, and lots of it. Smit was the pace setter almost from the gun, with team mate Andrew Elgar and a pair of BC riders - Will Routley and Bryan Moffatt - providing the chasing action.

"After the first lap I had built up a gap, and I wanted to keep up the pressure" explained Smit. "But I started to think that I might have gone off too early and tried to conserve a bit at the halfway point. I was worried about being caught so I tried to make sure that I did everything smooth and avoid crashing. I've had a lot of bad luck with mechanicals this year, and I wanted to avoid that."

Smit managed to avoid any problems and made it look easy as he cruised in for the gold medal, but behind the battle for second and third was heating up. National junior champion Adam Coates (Saskatchewan) led the chase in the first lap, but started to gradually slip back, eventually finishing 5th. Unbeknownst to spectators he was suffering from a stomach bug, picked up during the week of racing.

Elgar, Routley and Moffatt were consistently chasing, always in sight of each other, but behind them another rider was moving up - Marc Bomhof (Alberta). "I was a little slow at first, but that's how I start my races. It was an amazingly fast pace from the start, but in the second lap I managed to slowly catch up to some riders. In the third lap I could see an Ontario rider in front (Elgar) and when I passed him I finally knew that I could have a good race."

Bomhof had moved from back in 7th place to second by the last lap, and would hang on to the silver medal position, even though Routley was starting to pull him back at the end. Routley passed a fading Elgar at the end of the third lap to take the bronze.

Race Notes:

- Quebec took bragging rights for top province in both men and women. The results are based on total points from all riders. Alberta was second for men and third in the women's category, while Ontario was third for men and second for women. Full results were provided in an earlier posting.

- Albertans Marc Bomhof and Carrie Tuck were the top individual points getters, showing remarkable consistency through all 4 events.

- We want to take moment here to congratulate the organizers of the cycling events on their efforts this past week. We heard almost no complaints all week about either the organization or the courses (a remarkable feat in and of itself...), and anything that was brought to the attention of the organizers was remedied immediately. The volunteers (most of whom knew nothing about cycling) were enthusiastic and bent over backwards to be helpful. Kudos to Lori Pol and her entire crew.


Complete Results from Track World Cup in Mexico (including Canadian results)
Courtesy UCI