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Tassie devil: The Sid Taberlay diary 2004
24 year-old Tasmanian Sid Taberlay is a man on a mission. The current Australian and Oceania mountain bike champion, Sid is, like so many athletes this year, striving for a berth at the Athens Olympics Games. But his never-say-die attitude, down-to-earth deameanour and a desert-dry sense of humour - not forgetting a bloody big motor! - puts Sid in the best position possible to realise a life-long dream.
Athens, August 27: Men's Mountain Bike, 2hr 15min
Sid's sorrows
8:00am: Breakfast.
8:30am: Pack gear into car.
9:15am: Depart Athlete's Village.
9:45am: In team tent, ready for warm up.
10:00am: Warm up.
10:45am: Lined up with the space-age Nike ice-vest.
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11:00am: Gun goes off. Not a great start, foot missed clipping into my pedal, then a big pile-up in the first corner. My chain fell off and I had taken the first place at the wrong end of the field. Can only get better from here; came through the back markers like they were standing still, only to be taken out by a poor technical rider crashing. Had all the tail-enders come past again. That was the end of the start loop and then I had seven laps to salvage something. Still having good legs, I moved up into around the top 20 at the end of the first lap.
On the second lap, I lost my water bottle; my water bottle cage had broken... perhaps in one of the crashes? I went into the lap with the one mouthful of water. I lost my legs somewhere in this lap - I blew up. Probably a combination of chasing too hard and a lack of water in the hot conditions.
Determined to finish, I struggled up the climbs and had fun entertaining the crowds on the downhills for the remaining five laps to finish in my starting postion of 23rd. Not what I had in mind, but happy to be here and finish.
Sid
