Champs defend national mountain bike titles

Sports

Posted By Shawn Slaght

Posted 1 month ago

By Shawn Slaght

Banff Crag & Canyon

Defending national champions Catharine Pendrel and Geoff Kabush held on to their respective titles at the 2010 Canadian National Cross-Country Mountain Biking Championships Saturday at the Canmore Nordic Centre.

Cindy Montambault took the hole shot during the show lap in the women's elite race, but after that it was all Pendrel as she finished five minutes ahead of Amanda Sin in second place.

Pendrel's closest competitor in the race was expected to be seven-time national champion Marie-Helene Prémont. However, Prémont withdrew due to illness from the race at the last minute.

"It definitely made it anticlimactic," Pendrel said. "I was looking forward to racing her. I think she is doing really well right now and would force me on to my A-game. I think I was able to motivate myself to push for everything today and I want to defend my World Cup leaders jersey next weekend."

The story of the women's race was Emily Batty of Brooklin, Ont., who won her fourth Canadian National title in the women's U-23 division. Not only did she blow away the U-23 field, she also passed riders in the elite division to finish third overall between both divisions.

"It was this underlining goal of mine (to pass elite riders)," said Batty. "And I caught all but two."

For the first couple of laps Batty rode with second place finisher Mikaela Kofman before pulling away from the field.

"Mikaela was having an awesome race and I was wondering whether I'd be able to shake her or whether she would hold on for the remainder of the race," Batty said.

The men's elite division turned into a three-horse race between Kabush, Max Plaxton and Derek Zandstra. All three created a lead group after the first lap.

With only two laps to go, Plaxton fell behind a bit on Zandstra and Kabush. He was able to recover, though, to take second place. On the fourth lap, Kabush pulled away from the group to win his seventh consecutive national championship, 45 seconds ahead of Plaxton.

"It was an interesting race," Kabush said. "It is basically an extended climb until you hit the oven. I think Max, Derek and I are pretty well matched."

Kabush said on the first couple of climbs he felt he was lagging and fell on a false flat on the back side of the course.

"During the first half I really had no idea what was going to happen," he said.

Both Pendrel and Kabush were riding new Shimano mountain bikes that were just released to a few of the top riders in Canada. Kabush had nothing but positive things to say about the new bike.

"It has been great," he said. "They just released it to a few of the top riders before the B.C. bike race a couple of weeks ago. It takes off through the corners and some great improvements to the breaks."

National cross-country ski team member Alex Harvey tried to qualify for the World Championships, but finished in ninth place.

The men's U-23 division saw an upset as Jarred Stafford of Newmarket, Ont., took home his first national title upsetting several higher ranked riders.

For Stafford, this was his second national championship and his first in the U-23 division. He competed last year as a junior and never finished the race.

"I knew with the start loop it was going to be a crazy fast start," Stafford said. "There were going to be guys going off hard and detonating on the long climbs so I decided to start more conservative."

Full results from the Canadian National Cross-Country Mountain Biking Championships can be found at www.zone4.ca.

Shawn@thecrag.ca

Topic guidelines: We welcome your thoughts, stories and information related to this article. Please stay on topic and be respectful of others. Keep the conversation appropriate for interested readers.