The final day of this year’s MTBO WOC saw the men’s and women’s relay events conducted. Australia was very hopeful for a podium position in both classes but this didn’t eventuate.

Alex Randall (53min) led the men out but a 6 minute mistake half way through the course gave the other team members a difficult task to chase other teams down.  Paul Darvodelsky had a solid ride (51 min) before handing over to Adrian Jackson who rode well, recording a time of 48 minutes, to bring the team up to 11^th place overall.  The winners were Denmark over Russiaand Czech Republic.

In the women’s class, Melanie Simpson had the pressure of leading the team off in her first ever relay.  After a great first half she made a 5 minute mistake and immediately afterwards rode directly from control 6 to 8, missing an in and out ride to control 7.  Jen Graham-Taylor rode the second leg not knowing of the disqualification to record her best ride of the week, finishing in 49 minutes, giving her 20^th fastest time overall.  Thor Egerton rode the 3^rd leg and was pleased with her time of 51 minutes.  Finland won the race ahead of Russia and Austria.

David Simpfendorfer and Cath Chalmers rode in an Open 2 person team doing the women’s course.  David came second overall finishing in 38 minutes and Cath was pleased with her effort, finishing in 50 minutes.

Also of note was David’s 3^rd place in yesterday’s B final for the long course in a time that would have placed him 46^th in the A final.

This concludes this year’s MTBO WOC in Poland.  The highlights for Australia were Adrian Jackson’s 3 podium finishes including the Gold medal in the Middle Distance event.  There were also benchmark top 16 performances by Alex Randall and Melanie Simpson and the 3 newcomers in the team learnt a lot and showed great potential for the future.

For a full summary of the week and plenty of pictures have a look at the team blog.