Sport through the lens

Maribor was once again hosting UCI MTB World Cup, but this year, only riders in gravity disciplines were riding trails under Pohorje.

Brian Lopes of USA during 4x MTB World Cup finals in Maribor
As always in MTB World cup circus, atmosphere was relaxed, and it’s much easier to work this way, even though it wouldn’t hurt, if number of riders would be “a bit” smaller. It gets quite long, if there’s more then 300 riders on start list.

Dan Atherton of Great Britain during 4x MTB World Cup finals in Maribor

And even bigger problem with such huge number of riders, is time which we have between semi final and finals run. But I agree it’s great for spectators, if there’s always something happening, and on the end, that’s all what counts. And spectators were once again really great, chearing for every single rider.

Winner Anneke Beerten of Netherland during 4x MTB World Cup finals in Maribor

But we still need to send photos from semi finals, before start of final run, and having about one hour to came down from mountain, send photos, and go back to track, to catch final run is not really easy thing to do. But we survived :)

Tomas Slavik of Czech during 4x MTB World Cup finals in Maribor

Johannes Fischbach of Germany followed by Romain Saladini of France during 4x MTB World Cup finals in Maribor

Bigger problem, then time shortage, are games some of sponsors are playing. This time, it was Nikon with their “Solution day”. I’m happy they organize events like this, even if I’m not shooting Nikon, but not the way they were doing it. They brought 100 people each day, at least that’s number of photo bibs which they wanted, and made some seminars and presentations. Of course this is perfectly fine, but after that, they equipped those people with press passes and photo bibs, and gave them free access to track. Hellooo, anybody home???!!

Gee Atherton of Great Britain during women semi final run of first Downhill MTB World Cup

Marcus Klausmann of Germany during men semi final run of first Downhill MTB World Cup

It would be quite ok, if this would be some chess tournament, but it wasn’t. It was MTB World Cup race, event where riders fly between the rocks and trees with speed way over 60 or 70km/h.
Now imagine 100 enthusiastic photographers (aging from 5 to 70 years), who got their accreditation for first time in their life, and who have no idea about proper behavior on sport events, crashing on narrow mountain trail, trying not to get hit by speeding rider. Luckily nothing happened, but sooner or later luck will end, and something pretty bad will happen.

Rider during men semi final run of first Downhill MTB World Cup

Kevin Mollard of France during men semi final run of first Downhill MTB World Cup

Personally I think, press accreditations and photo bibs have their role. They are meant for working journalists and photographers, not for 10 year old kid, who is guest one of sponsors. People covering MTB World cup (or any other sport) on regular basis, know how to behave. We know where we can stand to minimize danger and still get our shots, and even then, accidents are happening. Some 10 year old kid, who was never even been on race as spectator, can’t expect what can happen, and when looking through viewfinder of just borrowed camera, things can get even more unexpected. And if it’s somehow understandable that people like this, won’t let once in life time opportunity out of their hands, organizers should know better. Even if they don’t care about those kids (and not so kids), they should take care at least about them selfs.

Winner Sabrina Jonnier of France during women final run of first Downhill MTB World Cup 2008

Riders on World Cup are not some local heroes, who will go away with 50eur and free pizza, if they will crash into one of 100 wannabe photographers on track, and destroy their career. They have huge contacts, and I’m sure, they will get refund of their lost income one or another way. But when something like this will happen, it will be already way too late.

Second placed Steve Peat of Great Britain during men final run of first Downhill MTB World Cup 2008

So I have no idea why to play games like this, even though pretty much same thing could be done with much less danger. Yes it would be a bit less attractive, but still attractive enough, it would be almost totally safe, unfortunately nothing is 100% safe. And even we would be happy, because nothing would be walking infront of our lens, ruining our shots. But… it’s not up to me to decide about things like this, even though when something like this will happen, all of us will be on worse, then we are now.

Winner Samuel Hill of Australia during men final run of first Downhill MTB World Cup 2008

More photos from two days of MTB racing can be seen on Photo SI web.

Women 4x finals
Men 4x finals
Women DH half finals
Men DH half finals
Women DH finals
Men DH finals