Your 2010 National Champions are...
...doing good bog-snorkeler impressions?
4:13pm, Jul 19th 2010
The weather wasn't kind to us this weekend. A drying track on Saturday was never going to last, and sure enough it rained most of the night, and then most of Sunday too. The smart money was on tear-offs, peak-extenders and any mudguards you could lay your hands on (or improvise out of empty bottles, zip ties and gaffer tape!)
Women's race
Jess Stone took full advantage of Tracy and Rachel being absent. She went quickest in seeding, putting 2 seconds into nearest-rival Helen Gaskell. Impressive though that was, she managed to go over 5 seconds quicker in her race run. That didn't stop Katy Curd running her close though, only 1.1 seconds adrift in second place, with Gaskell rounding out the podium. Katy was hobbling around after a big crash at the end of Saturday's practice; maybe things would have been different if she was fighting fit? But then, as they say, "that's racing".
Whichever way you cut it, Jess (former Junior Champion) did what was needed on over the weekend, and in only her 2nd year in Elite.
Men's race
On to the men's race, and Steve Peat was a late casualty of the seeding runs. He finally crossed the line over a minute off of the pace, covered in mud from an obvious fall. George went quickest in seeding with a 2:19, 2 second clear of RatBoy and Simmonds.
Since the slowest seeders go first in race runs, Peat was one of the first down the hill. The World Champion hasn't had the best season so far this year, and I think many people had written off his chances of regaining the National title, agreeing that Gee probably had it sewn up, barring a mechanical or crash.
Well Steve proved them wrong, setting a stunning 2min15 in his race run and taking up an early position in the hot seat. The hot seat where he remained for the full remaining 66 riders. Second place on the day was a devastated-looking Atherton, 3.09 seconds off of the win. Gee had looked unstoppable in practice and seeding, so a three-second winning margin is impressive stuff!
Third place went to a deserving Bryceland, with Simmonds 4th and Fergus in 5th. Just 2 seconds covering 2nd-5th places - close racing!
Other gubbins...
For other categories, see the full results, hosted officially and exclusively here, on 
. Worth mentioning (maybe) that the full results were live on here within an hour of prize-giving finishing. Would have been quicker but my 3G card seems to have packed up so I had to find a pub with some wifi access. Hard life, being forced to go to a pub, not sure how I cope!
Lastly - but not leastly - A big get well soon to perennial veteran rider Andy Sturla who went down hard in practice and was carted off to hospital with a suspected broken vertebrae :(
