The 1st UCI MTB Marathon of 2007 Gran Canaria
A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing!
The 1st race of the UCI marathon calendar proved many people wrong. Like expecting the 1st day at work to be easy, the Gran Canarian event seemed to have caught many riders unawares. The sunny easy going nature of the Canarian lifestyle was not mirrored in the course that wound its way along the coast and up into the hills and back to the finish at the Wild West Park at Sioux City,.
From the winners to the riders who rolled in at sunset, the consensus was that the course was mentally tough and extremely hard on mind, body and bike from absolute start to absolute finish. Even on the home straight, a soft sandy street pulled at every pedal stroke right to the line. The course had teeth and it bit hard.
Many top riders expected relatively easy UCI points considering that the Californian Sea Otter Classic and the Cape Epic in South Africa would pull away the big guns to other races, but as hindsight proves, this strategy was only partially successful.
UCI Pro Elite Men and Women 91kms
The Pro Elite men’s winner was indeed the favorite, the Columbian Leonardo Paez riding for Full Dynamix, rode where others walked and stayed out of trouble to come home a minute before the 2nd placed rider Thomas Dietsch of Gewiss Bianchi.
A large contingent of Norwegian riders from CC Lillehammer and Team Hoydah prepared for the race with road rides on the island and had some success with Lars Manegan who finished 57th on his super light Scott hardtail. His colleague Maruis Thorstad survived puncture free but his view was forthright “A very tough course to the end”. The Norwegians though, tough as ever will be back to make amends.
90 Challenge 77 Kms
All in all the riders with the most technical experience on this type of surface were the ones who felt they had done better than expected. Abigail Armstrong one of the British riders in the women’s Pro Elite race told me that she enjoyed the course and was typically happy to finish, and much to her surprise, was selected for UCI random doping control at the end!
Race Village
The race village itself, small and compact as is typical for an island event was complemented by the professional facilities of Sioux City who are used to handling large numbers of tourists arriving at once. Many riders recognizing the Free Motion stand from the Training Camp centre earlier in the week found they had a place to stock up on gel packs and tubes as well as chill out away from the crowds.
There were no queues either for food or drinks and enough interesting features in this amazingly authentic Wild West town to keep the spectators fascinated for the whole weekend. Lolling cowboys with handlebar moustaches kept children transfixed as they jangled by with their spurs. An excellent barbeque helped riders recuperate and relax in the evening sunshine. Large cowboy steaks of excellent quality meat at 10 Euros satisfied many a rider!
The combination of high tech timing and race apparatus provided by Last Lap in a 18th century setting gave the impression of chaos but everything worked well and there were no hitches to complain of. In the end almost 600 riders and a 1000 plus spectators came to Sioux City, with the majority by far coming from Germany and Switzerland.
Without a doubt Gran Canaria is now a main mountain biking destination in Europe and surely has a strong case for providing a UCI marathon again next year.
