Euromtb 2016 wish you a happy new year!
Happy New Year to all of you from the 2016 EuroMTB organization in Huskvarna, Sweden! We wish 2017 to be the best year...
It is not only about hours, weeks, month and years of training and racing. Even if you are blasting by all competitors at the National Championship there is no garanties. To enter the Mountainbike event at an Olympic Game it comes down to the Olympic ranking, UCI-points but also the criteria set by your national olympic committee. At most a country could have three riders (men at most 3 and women 2) going to the Olympics. But several countries will get zero spots on the starting grid. You find the current ranking here.
And even if the country have a spot, you as a rider need to prove yourself and place (for example in continental championships) good enough based on the national committees criteria to be able to go. The European Championship might be the last chances to qualify for an individual rider based on that criteria.
So when you are able to go to the ”games” you want to really really get it right. Prepare for each and every circumstance. Every obstacle, every cut corner, every second of extra power might give you the ultimate price.
Even if you don´t know if you are going, preparation starts early. So it is not surprising you see Norweigan Gunn-Rita Dahle Flesjå on a track in Norway that is built to be a compressed version of whats is waiting in Rio. It´s built by local riders (from Bryne Cycleclub) and entusiast in Njåskogen. It has similar obstacles as found on the 2016 Olympic track (see Julien Absalons race at the test event in Rio) such as rocket gardens and jumps, pumps and turns.
Dahle Flesjå has one Olympic gold, ten WC golds and eight EC golds (and uncountable other wins), pretty good stats that is. And it´s not done without meticulous preparations!
Gunn-Rita testing the Rio-track at home from Kjetil Alsvik on Vimeo.
