World Championships – Canberra, Australia

The Worlds is always a special race and I was really looking forward to it this year as I won the World Cup in Canberra last year and felt pretty confident at having a good chance at finally winning the Worlds ! It’s such a different race as this is the only race in the year where you represent your country and not your trade team and sponsor. This is the 12th World Championship I have competed in and I still feel a great sense of pride putting on my Great Britain jersey and representing my country. I stayed with Team GB and got to know the XC riders which I always enjoy as we never really spend anytime with them the rest of the year. In fact we all went out on a recovery ride the first day we arrived. I hate to see their hard rides if that was a recovery ride !!

We arrived 5 days before practice began so we had some time for training and also a little sightseeing. Apart from looking for Kangaroos everywhere I went I also visited the Australian Institute of Sport which is in Canberra. It was a pretty impressive facility that caters for a large number of sports. It’s very evident why Australia is so successful at sport as they have a great system in place to produce champions.

Before long the fun was over and it was time to get to work. Trek had made us new frames for worlds with our country’s flag detailed into the stickers, they looked great and I was looking forward to riding it.

Another difference with worlds is that we had 6 days of downhill practice, and on such a short course it was going to be important to try and stay fresh and motivated when race day finally came. The track was pretty much the same as last year except for the addition of a few new jumps just before the pedalling section. They did give you more speed for the pedalling section but it was still a very long flat drag to the finish !

Practice went really well for me at the start of the week, so I took Thursday off and just walked the track and watched. We had a new format for Worlds this year, in that there was no seeding run, the start order for the final just went off our world ranking, which put me 2nd, so I would be the penultimate rider in the final. However we still did have a timed training session and I chose to take the opportunity to practice a race pace run and ended up with the fastest time with an imperfect run. It was great for my confidence and I knew I could still work on a few sections as we still had another day of practice.

Race day finally came around and the weather was perfect with less wind than we had experienced on previous days. I was quite excited on race morning as you have to wait 12 months in order to have chance at winning those rainbow stripes and this was finally the day that they were up for grabs. I was in a great frame of mind and had a good warm up. The crowd were pretty impressive and definitely some of the most vocal in the world, drunken Ozzies with megaphones, chainsaws, flags and all other manner of banners and props !! It took a lot of focus to not get put off by them at the start as they started shouting at me whilst I was sat in the start gate, still with 1 min to go !! My race run went well, I had a couple of mistakes in the first technical section but otherwise hit my lines and I was really pleased how strong I felt in the pedalling. It was one of the best runs I had put together this year and when I crossed the line I was just over 2 secs off the lead. I was gutted, once again I wasn’t going to win Worlds, however I was pleased with my preparation, my focus and my run which at the end of the day is all you can control.

In this situation someone went faster than me and that left me taking home another silver medal from worlds, I’m up to 3 now !! Looking at the results I lost all my time on the top section where I had a few little mistakes and maybe just didn’t attack it quite as much as I could. I however made up a second during the last 40sec pedalling straight which I was pleased to see as it showed all my training had been worth it and I was still strong at the finish. I could have done with another 40sec of pedalling and maybe I could have pulled even more time back !!

My disappointment and mood was soon lifted as I joined in celebrating with I think almost every person at the race, when Steve Peat finally won his first World Title. It was so good to be there and witness that moment as the place erupted, it was incredible. The most deserved World Champion and it gave me some hope that even after 4 silver medals and at the age of 35, he showed it is still possible, so I guess I should keep my dream alive for another year at least !!