The day started like most other days I had seen in Europe, sun peeping through the shutters at 5am and the temperature rising quickly. This wasn’t any normal day; it was the day that I had dedicated many long hours to, the day of the world championships.

    The first race of the World Championships started with the team relay. For the first time in many years Australian had a team on the start line.

    The basic principle of a team relay is that you select your fastest Elite Male and Female, U23 Male and Junior Male and everyone does one lap each. The first team over the line after having each rider complete 1 lap wins.

    Lachlan Norris completed the first lap bringing us home in 14^th which was a great result considering our start position of 18^th.  The mud had settled in to stay after a few days of inconsistent rain.

     As a warm-up for the Worlds we headed to a few kilometres out of town for an Italian National round. We had had the chance to ride a lap of the track the day before so we knew what it would be like. The track was much different to what I had expected, from what others were saying I gathered there was a lot less single track and a fair bit more racing through grassy fields.

    This was definitely the case, even more so than I had expected, the track consisted of mostly mown paths through fields with a small section of technical single track and the rest wound its way through Italian streets. I managed to crack my rear carbon brake lever after losing my front wheel around a grassy off camber turn. We were unable to find a replacement so I switched it with my front in case it fully snapped off during the race. If the front lever snapped at least I could still race.

     The day had come, to the World Mountain bike Championships we headed. After a long wait at Sydney airport due to the time it took for the other guys to get from the domestic terminal to the international terminal we finally met up and later left Sydney on our trip to Italy.

    This was not just a trip to the Worlds for me but it was the first time I had ever been overseas. I had an idea of what it may be like in Italy from the stories of other but I really had a lot to look forward too ahead of me. The plan was to fly from Sydney to Rome via Kuala-Lumpa in Malaysia, from Rome we were to catch another plane from Rome to Verona.

    We drove to Lithgow on the Saturday before the Sunday of the race to ride the track in preparation for the race. The weather could not decide weather it wanted to rain or shine, we hoped it would be crearing as we got furthure awway from the coast. That was not the case, it rained all the way to the track but to our surprise, not at the track. The track was still dusty dry!

    We got our gear on and plenty of it at that, it was very cost for being 1pm in the day, then I remembered we were in Lithgow! The track was great fun, possibly a bit to windy but other than that it flowed quite nicely. It has jumps, steep decents, berms, brigdes and even some 370m of altitude change. That meant there was alot of climbing.

    Following the completion of the 2008 Oceania Championships and in accordance with the 2008 selection policy, the National MTB selectors have finalised the selection for the MTB World Championships Junior Cross Country Team.

    The Saturday before the race was a lovely sunny day with only a few cloudy patches here and there. Tomorrows race was looking promising i thought...but not according to the weather forecast, rain and possible thunderstorms were on their way! And they were spot on, Sunday morning was raining and miserable. We drove out to the Sparrow Hill, known for its fast, flowing single tracks and got out the umbrellas and started to get the bikes out and get some gear on. After registration a hole in the clouds appeared and a bit of blue sky peept through, from there the whole storm cloud cover cleared and the sun took over! I was happy and I bet the majority of people there were as well.

    The under 19 Cross Country race started early Sunday morning at the base of the new Mt Stromlo mountain bike park. The morning in the lead up to the race had been a long one, many thoughts and worries crossed my mind but at the forefront of all that was the that fact that I was about to race one of the most important races of my life. I'll admit, I was scared....not of the course, not of the competitors but of the fact that a simple wrong decision while racing could make all I had put so much into worthless. A rock slashing down the side of my tyre would end my day!