The first round of the New Zealand North Island Series kicked off this weekend with Rotorua - Round 1 NZ National DH Series 2009. The National Series is now made up of two Island Cups, each with three races, and a National Champs. Click here for the dates.

Emmeline Ragot, Rotorua 2008.
Photo: Ruth Payne

The weather was rubbish on practice day, with thunder storms delivering a torrential downpour and soaking the tracks. For race day, the mud had settled into nasty wheel-sucking bogs. Huge ruts with the depth to ruin any carefully chosen lines had formed, throwing riders off course. As a result, there was a lot of crashing and casing jumps as people came into them with less speed than expected.

This race had more women enterred than any Nationals race last year, and while this should have been cause for clebration, but BikeNZ had made a decision to combine any classes that didn’t have sufficient numbers. This meant that all the possible catgories of U15, U17, U19 and Open Women and Masters just ran as one category. Needless to say, this was pretty disappointing for the riders and their friends and families, since the juniors now face riding against any other riders who may have years of experience, while senior women have to race against the daring teenagers. Also, any Masters women who enter will just get chucked in there as well, and racing as a master is HARD.

In my opinion, having small numbers in these categories isn’t a problem to be solved by combining them, it should be solved by getting more women to race – something that’s even less likely to happen when they are racing against a mish-mash of other riders with different abilities to them. Also, up and coming young riders who are trying to get results to show to potential sponsors will now get a confusing combo of races where they are in different fields each time depending on who they get combined with. And any under 15s who decide to give it a go will be racing against the super-fast U17 girls, some of whom have three years of racing experience already. If you feel strongly about BikeNZ’s decision to marginalise DH women even further, the person to email is karyn@bikenz.org.nz and she’ll pass it on to the appropriate people (don’t be mad at Karyn though, it wasn’t her deicision!)

Anyway, enough ranting. The Elite Women’s field was won by visiting French rider Emmeline Ragot, who stormed home through the mud in a sub-4 minute time despite a crash. She beat local MTB skills instructor Gabby Molly, Blenheim rider Harriet Harper, and newbie-elite Rita Langley who was proving she was trying hard by crashing lots.

Elite Women:
1 Emmeline Ragot
2 Gabby Molloy
3 Harriet Harper
4 Rita Langley

Podium - Rotorua Nationals 2008.
Photo: Ruth Payne

The hot favourite for the Junior title, Charlotte Clouston, is out of action with a broken ankle, leaving it to Madeline Taylor to use her moto skills to take the win with her big jumps and mad drifts. She was closely followed by the three uninjured Auckland girls: Sophie Tyas, Sophiemarie Bethel and Veronique Sandler, all within 5 seconds, and local senior rider Alice Kevern took the fifth podium spot.

Assorted Women (all other categories):
1 Madeline Taylor
2 Sophie Tyas
3 Sophiemarie Bethel
4 Veronique Sandler
5 Alice Kevern
6 Sarah Atkin
7 Baylee Jackson
8 Kaytee Campbell
9 Chelsea Munro

Older: Win $100 worth of clothes from Freeride Foundation!

Fresher: Sheryl Macleod seriously injured, but expected to recover

Published on 05/01/2009 by Martha Hucker.