We have a couple of class races this weekend; the African Championships where Tim Don was start-listed but was a DNS (upset stomach) and Mooloolaba where most of the GB elite will be warming up for Ishigaki in a couple of weeks. At the latter we have an interesting development in that the women's race was won by Liz Blatchford -- currently Australian but soon to become a Brit. She's changing allegiance because she failed to make the Australian Olympic team and, if that sounds a little familiar you may be equally interested in the rest of the results! Paul Amey was 2nd with an astounding run cutting back into Craig Walton's 3:30 lead off the bike, AJ was 5th and Marc Jenkins was 7th but we had no female finishers; both Julie Dibens and Anneliese Heard dropped out after the bike. Richard Stannard crashed on the bike and took Richard Allen out with him; Stannard is OK but apparently Allen was a bit more briused and battered. The full results are up on the race website.

Of course, the real interest in Mooloolaba is that it provides an indication of race fitness at a time of year when most of the GB elite are not exactly race ready. The fact that it is an Olympic year means that we get a World Championships very early in the calendar and then the main event in August; so northern hemisphere athletes will effectively have to peak twice. The GB qualification criteria require that an athlete delivers a top 5 place in either qualifier to get on the list or places in the top 10 to stand a chance of getting the third slot. Judging from today's result in Australia it looks as though the boys are race ready but that the girls may have a tougher job. Conditions, however, were hot and windy with only 37 of the 57 starters finishing.