National Marathon Champs/ Big Welsh Weekend ’09

Sally Bigham and Oli Beckingsale reigned supreme in the Welsh mountains with both riders winning British titles in the 2009 Marathon Championships held in Margam Park though not without any drama.

The British Marathon championships returned to one of the UK’s best-loved venues where just under a hundred competitors battled it out on one of the hottest days of the year. Course designer, Paul Davis, pulled out all the stops to deliver a truly challenging course, including a lung busting 40 minute climb just after leaving the arena.

Over four laps of the 22km course, competitors climbed, descended, climbed some more, splashed through rivers, darted through masses of single track, and took in some breath taking views of the Bristol Channel all in pursuit of one of the coveted British titles.

Oli Beckingsale – National Marathon Champion: This is the first time I’ve had a go at the marathon so it is great to finish with the jersey. It’s never really fitted in before with my busy schedule, but this year I could make a bit of time for it, so I decided to give it a go” said the local rider.

“Yesterday in the XC was okay, shame Liam decided to make an appearance. Don’t get me wrong, it was good to have him here, we rode well together but when I saw Liam, I decided to take it steady and on the last lap just didn’t fight that hard for it. No disrespect to Liam, he’s going well at the moment and I decided not to fight”.

“We had a good ride, were both coming into form, neither of us is at our best, so I saved a bit for today.”

“I didn’t feel rubbish at the start and for the first lap we had a nice little group out there. No one knew the course so we took it steady and had a bit of a laugh and a joke. I always think racing starts at halfway and that’s what happened today. We took two laps pretty steady and on the climb on the third lap, I gave it a little bit and only Paul (Oldham) and Ian (Bibby) came with me and I pushed on and came home for he win.”

“The course was very old school, a great 25 minute climb  -- I’m not going to moan about that! I really enjoy marathons but I don’t enjoy riding for a long time round small laps. Here they gave us a four lap course which makes it all bearable you don’t get bored.”

“The plan was to get the jersey but you never know how things will pan out and I’ve done a lot of racing leading up to this over the last couple of weeks and have come out of it with pretty good form. It’s been a great weekend. I’ll be doing the Marathon Worlds and having a proper pop at it. A 100km loop in the mountains really motivates me and sounds like a great day out, but no worries I’m sticking to XC. One or two marathons every now and then is enjoyable, and if I can come back and defend my jersey great, but we’ll see.”

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