Crash dents hopes for New Zealand mountain bike team

New Zealand’s campaign in the 2009 UCI Mountainbike World Championships kicks off in Canberra tomorrow.

Fourteen of the New Zealand team will compete in the junior and under-23 women’s cross country competition on a demanding course at Mt Stromlo.

Their chances were dented in final training today when Rotorua’s talented Monique Avery broke her arm after an accident on the feared rocky step nicknamed The Hammerhead.

“It was such bad news for Monique. She was definitely one of our top hopes,” manager Chris Mildon said. “She was practising through this really tough technical section when she crashed and has broken her arm.

“It is a pretty nasty drop and it has claimed plenty of victims already.”

The cross country course is a tough but unusual course with a long rocky technical section as well as a demanding downhill run.

“It is not the usual course that the Europeans will be used to and it’s difficult to get into a rhythm. It will certainly stretch out the field and requires skill as well as strength, courage and endurance.”

Mildon said there are hopes of a strong performance from Wellington’s Samara Sheppard in tomorrow’s under-23 class and Sarah-Kate McDonald (Clyde) in the junior division tomorrow.

Sheppard said the course has improved but is still daunting.

“It has improved heaps since I was last here, the laps have been shortened and several ‘dual slalom’ type sections have been to create more passing room in the single track,” Sheppard said. “It’s full on though, some real technical sections and heaps of drops and jumps. The course is not something you would want to do tired or half hearted as we found out, crashing here is never going to be nice.”

The weather has also improved markedly from the cold and wet conditions over the weekend with sunshine forecast for the rest of the week.

New Zealand will be looking for the downhill professionals Sam Blenkinsop (Wanganui) and Justin Leov (Christchurch) to lead the way, with both riders ranked in the world’s top-10.

With the retirement of Kashi Leuchs and unavailability of fellow Beijing Olympian Rosara Joseph, the cross country hopes rest with No 2 ranked kiwi Nic Leary (Raetahi), who has a top-25 finish in the recent World Cup in Canada to boost her chances.

Leary, who is also the national xterra champion, got a look at the course today with the traditional team relay competition which many countries treat as a training run, involving teams of four comprising an elite male and female, junior and under-23 male.

The kiwi combination of Michael Northcott (Tokoroa), Leary, Brad Hudson (Ashburton) and Ashley Hough (Tauranga) finished 18th in the shakedown, seven minutes behind winners Italy who headed Canada and France.

The junior men attack the cross country course on Thursday, under-23 men on Friday with elite men and women on Saturday. The four-cross takes place on Friday evening with downhill on Sunday.