English and Fay win Marathon races at nationals

After battling it out against some of Australia’s top endurance riders at the 2011 Australian Mountain Bike Marathon Championships in Queensland today, Jason English (4:24:49) and Jenny Fay (5:20:26) claimed victory following strong performances in their respective events.

2010-2011 Australian Mountain Bike Series silver medalist Jenni King (5:23:16), who placed outright second in the open women’s event, was crowned the 2011 Australian Mountain Bike Marathon Champion by virtue of Fay being ineligible to claim the title due to Irish citizenship.

The open men’s event was full of action today with some of the top riders forced to withdraw with injury and others crashing out. Finishing fourth last year, English was pleased to take the top step of the podium with fellow New South Wales riders Andrew Blair (4:27:13) and Shaun Lewis (4:30:37) who claimed silver and bronze medals.

"It’s awesome. I didn’t expect this at all. I’ve been doing a lot of training for next weekend, which is the 2011 Australian 24-hour Solo Mountain Bike Championships. That’s my focus and what I think I’m fairly good at," English said.

"On the first lap I managed to stay within the leaders pack and by the second lap a gap had formed. I dropped off a little there and I just rode fairly conservatively."

"In the third lap I broke away, while a lot of people went out too hard and just blew themselves to pieces, so it worked out in my favour."

A disappointing outcome for defending champion Ben Mather (TAS) who was forced out of the race after suffering severe cramping on the second lap.

"I put it all on the line today but once my legs started cramping, it was all over," he said. "The race was harder than expected, there was just nowhere to hide out there."

Former Australian marathon champion Craig Gordon was also unable to complete the race after crashing out on lap two.

In the open women’s event earlier in the morning, Fay was thrilled with the win over King in what she described as a ‘cat-and-mouse’ race.

"I was really aiming to kick it hard on the climbs and keep it pretty steady on the singletrack," she said.

"Jenni King is technically more able than me on the singletrack, so we played a bit of cat-and-mouse between that and the climbs on the first lap, and then I got a bit of a gap on the second lap."

"This is definitely the toughest marathon I’ve done. It’s more like a long course cross country race rather than a marathon race. I don’t think there was a flat section out there."

"The grass was hard, that puts a lot of pressure on your body. I didn’t find the win easy today at all. The girls are competitive, so I always had to look over my shoulder to make sure that I was doing well."

In what was her first time competing in the marathon championships, King felt pretty good to come away with the overall win.

"It feels really good, it was a tough race. A few of the riders, maybe all of the open female riders went out really hard early on so I had to push to stay amongst it," she said.

I’m really happy with the season so far, consistency was the goal. I’m pretty tired though, probably a bit more rest within the season would have been good."

"There was a battle for the top positions on the first lap, Jenny Fay was riding strong and climbing well but the technical descents suited me better and so there was some balance there."

The new course was one of the toughest I have ever raced on. It’s a good course, tough is good.

Rounding out the open women’s event was Anna Beck (5:57:22) followed by Maggie Synge (6:24:12) who rolled over the line in fourth position.

In other results, Jack Jude (1:53:21) and Kylie Maduna ( 2:07:18) took out the open male and female half marathon events.