Deja Vu All Over Again

Sue Powell, World Champion. Again. Just in a different event this time.  Today Sue dominated the C4 Women's Road Race with a clever combination of attacks and conserving energy when it mattered.  As would have been expected after the time trial, when the three C4 women were separated by less than 12 seconds over 15km, the race came down to a sprint finish.  After 60km of racing, Sue took the gold by about 20cm ahead of Marie-Claude Molnar (Canada), with the Megan Fisher (USA) rounding out the placings.

On the podium again. Only two medals are awarded when there are only three starters

And what of the rest of we mere mortals?

Last night Jenny, Jing and I had dinner at Noma, Copenhagen's famous restaurant voted best in the world for the last two years.

Outside Noma which is housed in an old warehouse on the waterfront in Copenhagen

At Noma there is no menu, you simply eat what is put in front of you. And what is put in front of you is a range of very small servings of a wide variety of locally produced exotic fare. We had about nine appetisers including Reindeer moss, deep fried and served with creme fraiche..

Reindeer moss imported from Finland, served deep fried

The appetisers were followed by seven main courses and bread served with pig fat crumble and unclarified butter.  If you are into exotic food I suggest you go to http://www.noma.dk/ and check out the full menu.  It's certainly an experience!

This morning those who raced yesterday had a light recovery day and took in some more stunningly green Danish scenery.  Of course, one must have the obligatory "I was here" photo -

Jing and Kerry on the outskirts of Ringsted

As I've mentioned, Jing is here representing Chinese Taipei and this morning, the Chinese Taipei Ambassador to Denmark, his wife and secretary paid a visit to the Chinese Taipei team at out hotel.  It was an honour for us to have this meeting and to be able to provide some background on Para Cycling. 


Jing explains the finer points of cycling to the Ambassador

And so ends another varied and busy day in the world of para cycling.  Tomorrow is the last day of racing and Jing and Brandie and Kerry have their road races to complete proceedings.


Time Trials Done and Dusted

The time trials for all categories are now finished.  Unfortunately the second day wasn't quite as successful as the first but Australia still finished on the podium twice, with silver medals to Michael Gallagher in the C5 Men and Carol Cooke in the WT2 (women's trike) category.

Brandie and Kerry couldn't quite find their rhythm in the Women's tandem category and finished in 16th place. We'll chalk that one up to experience and move on to the road race tomorrow to look for a better showing.

In the women's C2 division, Jing delivered Chinese Taipei's first top 10 World Para Championships result, finishing 6th in her category and overtaking the rider from Russia, who started three minutes in front of her, in the process.  Jing's average speed was close to a personal best and Taiwan can be very proud of her representation.  Jing is also looking forward to the road race to see what it's like racing elbow to elbow with others in her category.

Today Sue is in action in the combined women's C4/C5 road race.  Sara Storey (C5) from Great Britain is also in this race and is a formidable rider in able bodied elite company, so my prediction is that the pace will be on and only the brave will survive!  Tune in later for results/report from this race.

Sue Powell, World Para Cycling C4 Time Trial Champion

Yes, the first events of the Championships are completed and Australia leads the medal count with two Gold medals.  David Nicholas won the Men's C3 Time Trial and Sue Powell has reclaimed the Women's C4 crown.

Final times haven't been posted yet, but David blazed around the 15km course in around 20 minutes.

Sue powered her way around in a stunning display of power and technique to shut out the USA rider who beat her by a full minute last year.

And here's the proof!

Another Rainbow Jersey for the collection!

That's it for now.  Time for.... you guessed it, a well earnt cup of coffee.....

More Wild and Woolly Weather

Today was another day of rain and extreme wind, which kept the temperature down and anyone vaguely faint hearted indoors.  Not the intrepid Australian and Chinese Taipei teams though. In the interests of cross team harmony, Australian physio and classifier Anouska and Taipei's star athlete Jing came together for a trainer session early this morning, fully supported by various members of the Australian team waiting to leave for their training session on the course.

Jing and Anouska tough it out in the wind on the trainers while Kerry, Brandie, Sue, Peter and Jayme provide moral support or distraction, depending on your perspective!

Kerry and Brandie had an interesting time on the tandem, suffering a puncture only a few kilometres into their training ride, then as the wheel was changed, the sky opened up and it started to pour.  Some days are like that I guess.

But no matter what the weather...

A very rainy, windblown view from the hotel room

...there's always the reward of a hot cup of coffee waiting, if you just know where to look...

Latte at the local cafe

Today things started to get serious around race headquarters.  This morning we collected numbers, had racing kit inspected to ensure it complied with UCI regulations and were issued timing chips - after handing over a 100 euro deposit!

This afternoon at the Manager's Meeting we were briefed on all the various requirements for the next few days of racing, like where we have to park, how and when riders have to turn up for their time trials, when and where feeding is permitted during the road races and so on  all the administrative stuff that ensures the racing runs smoothly.  We were also given cool stickers to put on the front and rear of our cars to show that we are really allowed to follow our riders during the time trial.  What a shame they gave me stickers with "Turkey" on them instead of "Chinese Taipei"! Might have to do something about that tomorrow.

The day ended with yet another drive from Roskilde to Ringsted, but this time I was able to enjoy the scenery from a passenger seat. Soon we won't have to drive the vans because they'll know the way on their own! Here's an example of the scenery along the roadside.

The benefit of all the rain

Tomorrow marks the start of the business end of the trip.  Sue races in her C4 time trial starting at 2.14pm local time (10.14pm AEST). Australia also has three other competitors in action tomorrow. Jing and Brandie and Kerry will be on course racing for the first time on Friday.

Tune in tomorrow for results and race report.

Bikes, Bikes, Everywhere Bikes!

The thing that has astounded us most here in Denmark is the absolute respect motorists have for bikes.  There are on road bike lanes on all the major roads and at intersections the bikes have right of way.  At face value this doesn't sound much different to at home in Canberra.  Except that here, the cars actually give way, to the extent of reversing back from the bike lane if they drive out a little too far then see a bike coming!

The law here is that if there is a bike lane, bikes have to use it, and the law is pretty stringently applied, so that may have something to do with it.  As a result of the mutual respect however,ignificant numbers of people ride, and there are bikes of all shapes and sizes imagineable, everywhere you look. The bike parking areas at the railway stations are bigger than the car parks and are full of bikes from people commuting to Copenhagen from regional centres such as Ringsted and Roskilde, and its impossible to walk down pretty well any street without walking past rows of bikes. There's a lot of 'town bikes' - upright straight barred bikes with all the necessary guards that allow people to ride in suits and skirts, but there's a lot of hybrids and the occasional mountain bike. 

Bicycle parking in Copenhagen

People ride in every sort of clothing imagineable and mainly without helmets - don't want to spoil the hair on the way to work after all!

Here's an example of one of the more modern hybrids around the place.  Note the brand name stamped into the frame.

A Copenhagen "Avenue" bike

And what of the other bikes that we're actually here for?  Today we spent some more time on the course.  The wind was even stronger than the last time, but coming from a slightly different direction.  With the weather so far, there's no question that the wind will be a significant influence once racing begins, unless the forecast for rain is accurate.  The wind seems to drop a bit when the rain comes in.  If we're really lucky we might get both!

Here's Sue and Kerry getting ready to spend some more time etching the twists and turns of the race circuit into their memories.  As you can see from Kerry's attire, it was a bit cooler this morning.



Sue and Kerry mounting up.  Note the Avis van - graffiti artists are alive and well in Denmark too.

I took the following photo to give some idea of how tights parts of the course will be.

This is the narrowest stretch of road that the bunches have to pass through. It's about halfway through the race lap.  You can see a street sign at the back of the picture.  This signifies the T-junction immediately after this little squeeze.  The competitors have to make a tightening right hand turn at this T-junction, just to keep it interesting. And interesting it will be when the field of 40+ men's tandems, 20+ women's tandems or 50+ men's C1-3 bunch come through. Could be a good place to take photos!

I had to include the following photo just to prove we really are in Denmark at the World Para Road Cycling Championships.  The picture is a lot like the rest of the country - a curious mix of traditional and modern.



Not the oldest street sign I've seen, but almost ancient by comparison with the UCI sign beneath. This is the turn onto the finishing straight

  The mixture of traditional and modern is illustrated everywhere in Copenhagen.  We took a train ride into the capital this afternoon and treated ourselves to a canal tour.  Everywhere you look there are original buildings built as early as the 1600s (maybe earlier, but that's what I noticed) and right next door something extemely modern. In fact the "Black Diamond" is a renowned extension to the original city library and is a huge black, glass encased building constructed off the original, centuries old library building. Quite fascinating.

From the canal tour you get a good appreciation of how important boats are to the Danish people, although from the state of some that we saw moored in the canals, some people are a little more familiar with the bridges now joining Denmark to surrounding islands and countries than they may have once been with their boats!

Some of the more impressive craft along the canals

With more rain forecast for tomorrow it looks like being another wind trainer day, but we will wait and see.  Only two more days til racing starts, so we're nearly at the serious stuff.  Stay tuned...


And then there was rain... Oh, and colds.

We woke this morning to the not so soothing sound of constant rain. Not so good for practising on a technical course and not worth risking falls so close to competition. It wasn't such an issue for Sue, who was given the day off to try to see off the cold bug that's been plaguing her since a couple of days after arrival.  Kerry also had the day off to try to prevent the onset of the same bug. Brandie has also had the bug but is on the way up again, so good timing for the commencement of competition later in the week.

Jing has managed to stay healthy - must be because she's part of a different team! We still weren't prepared to chance it by going out in the rain, so she completed a productive session on the trainer, blowing the cobwebs out of the system.

This afternoon saw us doing another reccie of the course in the van. Its not quite as good as actually riding it, but it allowed us to identify a few more important things that will help get the best possible result come race day.

The weather also afforded an opportunity to check out the Factory Outlet Centre across the road from the hotel, and another couple of coffee shops.  At between $7-8 per cup of coffee, we're on rations though!

We picked up our accreditation from Championships HQ without any hassles, although there were some raised eyebrows when three English speaking people fronted up representing Chinese Taipei!  At least Jing and Jenny look the part.  I just maintained that I was adopted.  It elicited some laughs, but somehow I don't think anyone took me seriously.  We now look very official in our very smart team kit AND our accreditation cards on our very special "Sport Event Denmark" lanyards.

We're hopeful of good weather for tomorrow to allow some more riding on the course and then hopefully a half day trip to Copenhagen for some R&R pre race day.

Shotguns, Vintage Cars and Electric Fences

Yep, today we've seen it all!

We drove over to Roskilde this morning to familiarise with the course.  Our little Chinese Taipei team was lucky enough to go the 30-something kilometres in convoy with the Australian team, since we hadn't been there before and they knew where they were going.  Made it much easier than finding our own way!

We drove around the course first to make sure we knew where to go, but we needn't have worried as the Danish organisers had already been out on the course and there were helpful arrows clearly identifying every turn. Next step was onto the bikes for Jing to do a semi dress rehearsal on her time trial bike with me hanging desperately onto her back wheel offering advice on cornering lines etc, when breathing permitted it!

Jing taking in the scenery on the course

The course quickly leaves urban Roskilde, the road becomes quite narrow and winds its way through small country villages that are only a very few kilometres away from town, but in appearance could be 100 years away - thatched roofs, doors opening onto the road and so on.

The view towards Roskilde from the back of the course

So the reference in the post heading? Well first of all, we rounded a corner to the sounds of shotgun fire to discover a full blown duck hunt going on around the shores of a small lake between a few cottages.  One of the shotgun wielding crew looked to be no more than about 12, but, safety first, at least he was wearing protective earmuffs! We quickly carried on in case they mistook us for flightless birds and showed us a different kind of Danish welcome. 

Vintage cars.  I think there must have been a vintage car rally on somewhere because there was a constant stream of rather old cars passing by.  For the most part this wasn't an issue, but a couple of times it caused a bit of nervousness when confronted with an old 1950-60s Rolls Royce or similar, which took up the entire narrow country road, or an even older, "real" vintage car (1920s), which seemed to have difficulty with the steering, heading straight for us on a bend, but then veering back onto its own side of the road at the last moment!

In spite of various suggestions that Denmark is totally flat and there can't possibly be any hills on the course, it's actually quite undulating and to add to the interest, has several quite tight corners, which when combined with the narrow roads, will make for some interesting racing if anyone is feeling a bit daredevil.  One of the Australian hand cyclists, Michael, tried out one of the sharp downhill corners today and overcooked it a bit. After a spectacular barrel roll/flip with a degree of difficulty Matthew Mitcham would be proud of, he ended up in the long grass adjacent to the road.  This of itself wouldn't have been an issue, except that in true Tour de France style, he ended up tangled up in the fence.  Fortunately not barbed wire, but as it turned out, an electric stock fence.  Needless to say, a great deal of care was taken extracting him!!

Since there was a cast of thousands on hand to see Michael right, Jing and I continued on our way and made friends with a local Danish para cyclist, Bo and rode for a few kilometres with him before Jing rode off to complete the course on her own.

A matching pair...


On the drive back to Ringsted, we took the time to get in touch with our inner Monets.

On the road between Ringsted and Roskilde

And as any dedicated cyclist knows, a good ride has to finish with a good coffee, so let's do the same for this post - 

Cappuccino and Latte, Roskilde-style