15th ACC MTB Championship 2009 -XC Race 08th Nov 2009

I received a phone call from Danny on Saturday asking if I can help out as a marshal the next day in the Asean XC Championship. I was initially hesitant because I had already planned to follow Ah Heng and gang to ride the whole Burung Hantu trail on early Sunday morning which until today I have not had the chance. But I decided to help out because it is not often you get an international event held in Malacca and it would be a nice experience.

8am - Hutan Rekreasi, Ayer Keroh. Marshal briefing.
It was a good thing 10 ECC members volunteered as we discovered later, the international cycling body had plans to cancel the event if there were not enough marshals. I wonder what had gone wrong with the local organisers. Anyway, ECC members are a bunch of guys with nothing much to do on Sunday except cycling, so volunteering at a last minute was an easy decision.

Beatrice A. Lajawa from UCI body doing the briefing.

Testing the podium before the actual winners use it.

The event started at 10am with the junior men category being flagged off followed by the junior women category 2 minutes later.

The Elite Women category was at 12pm and the highlight of the day, the Elite Men category was at 2.30pm.

The Elite Women category winner from China. She deserve every glory of a winner from her consistent strong peddling.

Junior Women category. This is the spot where Wahid and I were doing the marshal work. It had a short uphill ride which then had a sharp left turn. It was a good spot as it slowed down the riders to enable me to jot down the ride plate numbers and Wahid to blow the whistle to inform the next marshal of coming riders.

There was a short break in between the junior and elite races and I took the opportunity to check out the action at the starting area.

The Indonesian Mountain Bike team

Korean rider getting his muscle warmed up before the race

Iranian team doing some last minute bike tuning.

This Specialized design looked familiar. It reminded me of Chan SM's Superbow Corratec bike.

More bikes being prepped up for the race

Finally, the Elite Men category came on. When they reached my area, it was a rush. All the good riders coming in together with some carrying the bike and overtaking. It was a frantic moment for me trying to jot down the numbers and at the same time hoping not to miss out any riders. Luckily Wahid helped out by reading out the numbers.

Kazakhstan rider that came out

That's me on the right corner. Thanks Wahid for the photo.

Nice display

I always had the impression Polygon makes lower end mtb bikes, this photo proved me wrong with the Indonesian team using it.

Overall, it was a good experience playing a small role in an international event. Thank you Danny for thinking of me for the marshal job. Though it was a whole day affair, it was worth every minute of it.

We were asked if ECC members can volunteer in next year's SUKMA games mountain bike event held in Malacca and I am sure there will be no problem. We will always be happy to assist.

More photos of the event here:

Abdul Wahid's photos 1

Abdul Wahid's photos 2

Kalvin Chong's professionally taken photos

XC Race results: in case you're wondering...
Men's Elite: Yamamoto Kohei (Japan) 1:45:59, 2nd Chan Chung Hing (Hong Kong) 1:46:11, 3rd Kirill Kazantsev (Kazakhstan) 1:48:00

Women's Elite: 1st Cheng Yuan Ren (China) 1:41:42, 2nd Rie Katayama (Japan) 1:44:58, 3rd Liu Ying (China) 1:51:07

Men's Junior: 1st Supachiwakun Natawat (Thailand) 1:06:17, Luk Chun Chung (Hong Kong) 1:08:39, Jerry Joeffrey Jemie (Malaysia) 1:09:02

Women's Junior: 1st Siriluck Warapiang (Thailand)1:01:38, 2nd Dinh Thi Nhu Quynh (Vietnam) 1:03:31, Yoo Da-Jeong (Korea) 1:05:24