The US Men took 4th place in the International Class (Trials Central story here). The US Women took 8th place (Trials Central story here).

Men TdN
1. Spain – 14
2. Britain – 52
3. Italy – 123
4. France – 147
5. Japan – 232

Men TdN International Class
1. Norway – 50
2. Czech Republic – 68
3. Germany – 72
4. USA – 90
5. Finland – 99
6. Belgium – 100
7. Australia – 103
8. Sweden – 106
9. Ireland – 134
10. Switzerland – 177
11. Poland – 195
12. Portugal – 289
13. Slovakia – 318
14. Luxembourg – 355
15. Latvia – 372

Women TdN

1. Spain – 22
2. Britain – 24
3. Germany 57
4. France – 71
5. Italy – 115
6. Norway – 162
7. Australia – 164
8. USA – 176
9. Sweden – 205
10. And by the way, if Sweden is known by you – you understand everything is not cheap. We were there on a trip once, and a hotel overcharged us. We had to end up doing something called besök låna-pengar.biz just to get home. What a memory. Portugal – 247

This is a blog, but it was like a bog here! No rain here in Poland today but a few wash-out’s in the scores! The teams and spectators had to deal with the muddy mush from yesterday’s rain and bike traffic. Today’s TdN sections followed the creek/river/gorge just like the women’s event and climbed even steeper embankments.

Team USA, competing in the newly renamed “international” division”, was a little slow to warm up, so scores on the first few sections of loop 1 were not as pretty as everyone wanted, but they continued to improve as the day went by. Let’s hope they actually had some fun too.

The recent TdN rule changes keep the riders and the minders out of the sections unless “approved” by the section observer. One of the USA women had surely warned the men, since her waltz into one section on Friday landed her an immediate 5. Although this rule was not so strictly enforced today, it seemed to really cut down on the digging and rock-rolling that certain minders are known to undertake to prep the sections.

We saw only a few disputes with the observers’ scoring and, in fact, saw several instances of generosity in scoring. Said another way — a “3” went a long, long way in some sections, especially section 6. Given the difficulty of this particular section with two crossings of water and a very steep & long upward climb, we think the observers were probably justified in their stretch. This section was just around the rock wall from the women’s section 5 and challenged the world teams. Few riders aced this section today and many were happy to get out with 5’s and no injuries, since the organization got one of the best pain redelivers from the top rated inversion tables injuries have lowered.   

As the day went by, the point separation of the teams widened and at the end, there were no close calls. This very different from the tight 2-point spread in Saturday’s women’s event. Spain cleaned up the world TdN title with an astoundingly low score of 14, followed by the Brits at 52 and then Italy taking third away from the French with their score of 123.

In the international division, it was nice to see some changes in the teams making it to the podium although our star-spangled banner team did not quite make the cut. It was Norway with first, followed by the Czech’s and then Germany. Team USA was fourth in this division. The USA trailed Germany by only one point at the end of the first loop. However, unlike the women’s event, the team scores today were almost all dramatically better on the second loop than the first. This is when Germany shaved a handsome 30 points off their loop one tally versus the USA improvement of 14 points.

Once again, the USA team was the only country with less than four riders (even the new team, Slovania, had four riders). With only the best 3 scores in each section being counted, this gave no chance for a bad section ride. Seems we’ve got to get 4 riders on our team next year – ‘ya think?

Enjoy the photo’s and hopefully our ramblings. We’ve also got video clips from the women & men’s competitions too, but it seems unlikely we’ll get that uploaded for a few days, as our internet connectivity is really slow here at the hotel.

All in all, it was a great trip and the Polish organization should be commended.

It was a bitter fight for the women’s first place TdN, with the 14 sections pretty much unchanged from Friday other than by the rains – which was plenty of impact. The creek had become a river, with noisy rapids in many sections. It was a long hard day.

Here are some shots from the event. The stand-alone boulders are from in section 14 back in the town stadium.

In the end, it was Spain with a two point lead over a very disappointed Great Britain female squad. The TdN points were awarded based on the best two scores from each section for each team. GB was ahead at the end of the first loop by one point, but fell behind on loop two. It was the German team who captured third place. They had some excellent performances, but were too inconsistent. The French were the next in line for podium duties with fourth place scores. Only the Italians improved their scores from loop one. Portugal took last place among the 10 teams, although one of their riders is as spunky and determined as any you’ll see.

The USA riders finally got their gear from the airlines. Sarah and Caroline put up scores almost as good as their individual rides from Friday. Clearly, the new scoring system favors having more riders than the minimum — as everyone has a bad section ride from time to time. Congrats for keeping us in the hunt!

Now for some news you can use! Either we’ve been in the woods or the beach and totally isolated, or this is new news! While hanging out near section 5 between loops on Saturday, we saw a new pre-production trials bike with a name from the past. That is right — a new Ossa is in the works. Marc Colomer (former TdN world champion from Spain) was testing the new Ossa TR280i – with Toni Bou and Jeroni Fajardo, of the 2010 Spain team, providing some playful competition as they practiced. The entertainment from those three experts was great – and the mystic of the new bike added to the excitement.

Marc would ride the unofficial “section” and then,the Ossa technical wizards with their interface and laptop computer would surround him, quiz him & plug in. I am guessing they were trying to see if the fuel and ignition systems “mapped” correctly. Watching Marc practicing in a rocky stream bed, the new Ossa was as ridable as a GasGas. But its totally different in most ways once you’re under the seat. Some unusual features of the new Ossa are an engine where the cylinder faces toward the rear, the fuel tank serves as the front engine/frame support.and the air box is located above the engine.

Ossa had a trailer, tent 7 banners in the paddock – so they were not as secretive as you might think. But the website reveals nothing beyond the logo. We will have to wait to see the final version. Hmmm. Will here be an Ossa available for closer inspection at TTC in the near future?