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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.
XC World Cup #3 - CDM, Fort William, Great Britain, June 5, 2004
Mr. Consistent
Hi, Mr. Consistent here - I finished tenth in third World Cup.
On to the report: World Cup #3 in Scotland. With a big travel day from our home in Holland to Fort William on Thursday, we just had Friday on the course. Luckily it was very similar to last year, with an added climb and descent. Not that it was needed, with an epic six minute, solid climb to start the lap. I had three practice laps, and I blew the lock-out seal on my forks. Fortunately "Team Red" (the Rockshox guys) were on call and got them working better than new. That pretty much killed all of Friday.
Saturday, race day. Due to the hour time difference from Europe, we had a rather late race at 3pm European time. In warm-up my legs were feeling flat. Awesome, I generally have a good day when feeling crap in the warm-up. We had one start loop, plus four laps, although the start loop was less than 500 metres shorter than a complete lap. I got a good start, riding second group off the start loop. Roel Paulissen and Christoph Sauser, both former world championship medallists, were off the front again - those guys are just on another level.
I had a mix up in the feed zone and dropped my bottle, luckily it was cool weather. I took third position into the following downhill, but being a little cautious into a slippery section, I stalled and went over the bars. I hate that - I always crash when taking it easy!
Landed hard on my ankle bone, ouch, my lower leg went semi-numb. I thought, that's it, end of race, I couldn't pedal. Rolling down the rest of the hill pedalling one-legged, my left leg slowly regained feeling. At the bottom I could pedal again, and was on the back on a group of six riders. Stayed there until the final downhill of the fourth lap. I had fourth place in sight, only the group was too strong on the final climb. Got past, then a slow puncture on the final downhill killed any chance of fourth. Nursed the soft tyre home for 10th. Crossing the line, I got the pleasure of doing my first overseas drug test. Nothing exciting, same deal as Australia, only three times as much paper work to do. Regards, Sid
