The Australian MTBO team have been arriving recently in Budapest for the upcoming MTBO World Champs.  We are currently staying at a sport and recreation campsite up in the hills of Pest.

Yesterday was the Hungarian Middle Distance Champs.  The aim was to treat the Middle distance race as a familiarization session seeing it was the first opportunity to ride on a Hungarian map for most of the team.

The Hungarian map posed a few challenges for the team with a couple of the team members coming unstuck in 1 or 2 places on the map. Up to 15 min was lost due to the riders struggling to decipher what was mapped as tracks and what were actually driveways to properties as they were essentially the same.

The junior males rode the same course as the elite males and Kristof Bogar of the Czech junior team posted the fastest time overall in a time of 60:28.  Our fastest rider was Chris Firman in 69:20 placing second in the M20.  This time would have placed him 19th overall in the Elite class.

Today’s relay was held on the same map as the Middle Distance but had a scale of 1:10000 compared to yesterday’s 1:20000.  Our fastest team placed 8th overall in what was a fast and furious ride.  Consistency was the key for Chris Firman and Ricky Thackray whilst Oscar Phillips and Steve Cusworth placed 11th, Russian Alexander Archipov and Ian Dalton 12th, Heath and Karl 15th with Tom and Marc placing 16th out of 28 teams.

This week sees the team continue training in Budapest in preparation for the World Champs next week in Vesprem.

Keep up to date with the Aus team at http://ausmtboteam.blogspot.com.au/ and on twitter and facebook.

All results and maps from the Hungarian Middle Distance and Relays can be found at http://astrois.hu/MTBO