Adrian Jackson and Alex Randall led the way for Australia today, building on yesterday’s success.  Adrian qualified fastest in his heat with the fastest time of the day, leading by over 2 minutes.  Alex was 3rd in his heat, only 42 seconds down on the leader.  Paul Darvodelsky (in 22nd place) and David Simpfendorfer (23rd) narrowly missed the final by 31 seconds and 1 minute 27 seconds respectively.  The standard of MTBO fields has been increasing significantly and Adrian and Alex will be in intense battles for places in Friday’s final.  Also flying the oceania flag was Chris Forne of New Zealand who qualified 3rd in his heat.

In the women’s race all 4 Australians made it through to the final.  Jen Graham-Taylor, Thor Egerton and Cath Chalmers settled into their races after yesterday and all finished well up the field.  Cath was in 13th place, Jen 15th, Thor 17th and Melanie Simpson 26th. (For the womens race there were only 2 heats).

Marquita Gelderman continued her outstanding form of this week, placing second, and another New Zealander – Georgia Whitla comfortably qualified in the junior race in 7th place.

Tomorrow is a rest day for the riders in preparation for the Long Distance final on Friday and the Relay on Saturday.  Friday’s final will be around 27km for the women and 39km for the men.