Rider Diary: Oli Beckingsale
Interview with Oli Beckingsale - Marathon Worlds - August 2009
Britain's foremost cross country racing ambassador, Oli Beckingsale is a three-time Olympian and has achieved top ten results on the World Cup circuit and at the World Championships. Now riding for Giant, Oli embarks toward his fourth and final Olympic Games with the hope of representing Great Britain at a home Olympics. To find out all about Oli read his feature-length interview, and get the latest from his season right here.
August 6 2009
World Marathon Championships
Last weekend I headed to Graz in Austria to take part in the World Marathon Champs. Gave it a good go but did not have the minerals in the end and finished 23rd. The new carbon Giant Anthem X SL was amazing and the perfect tool for the job though.
I was kind of in at the deep end as this was my first ever international marathon and I wasn't sure how it was going to work. Add in to the mix the mother of all courses, with six monster climbs, tech downhills and tech climbs and it was going to be a pain day for everyone. Spoke to Christoph Sauser and he said it was the hardest Worlds course he has done in climbing and technicality!
Over the first climb which started with a 28% (not a mistake) 3km road climb and I was in the second group from 5 to 10 taking it as steady as I could but the legs were good. Over the next big climb and after some crazy forest road descending the groups came together to make ten men at halfway.
Climb three and the race blew up as Roel Paulison (the winner) put the hammer down - both up and downhill. Starting the fourth climb I was in a group from third to sixth and feelling pretty good and getting confident. Then on climb five after 70km it all went wrong as my legs were giving way and I started to slide backwards.
Sixteen painful kilometres later I reached the course high point in 16th place with 20km of the most technical downhill to go. A flat did not help and I reached the finish in 23rd in 5hrs.
I have never been so happy to see a finish line!!!
In a Giant newsletter 'five things' style, I have some stats on the course
1- 104km in length
2- 3800m of climbing
3- 4.36hrs the winner time
4- 152beats, my average HR for 5hrs
5- 1 beer, the amount it took to take away the pain that night
Thanks for the support
Oli
