Sport through the lens

August and September are months of UCI World championships. This year it all started for me with Mountain bike World championships in Graz, Austria.

Elisabeth Brandau of Germany riding during women UCI Mountain bike Marathon World Championships race in Graz

To be honest, I’m not really looking forward to these things. On one side it could be pretty cool stuff, with not all that much of hectic, but people at UCI, especially those responsible for photographers or media in general, think different. They have different view on World, and once you find this out, you start to look at things differently. Contrarry to what people at FIS are thinking about cooperation with media, where they treat us as positive thing for them, people at UCI would probably like to shut down their competitions so there would be no media around. At least they wouldn’t have any work to do. Sad but true.

Gunn-Rita Dahle Flesjaa of Norway before start

But I’m not here to complain… at least not before end of September, when I will be in Mendrisio, Switzerland, covering road cycling WCH. I’m actually going to write about first really positive experience I had with UCI events.

Kevin Van Hoovels of Belgium riding during men UCI Mountain bike Marathon World Championships

UCI MTB Marathon World Championships in Graz, Austria was on my schedule for quite a while. It’s pretty close to my home town, and normally top 5 riders with men and women are mostly coming from countries where we sell big part of our photos. And then there’s one more thing, I actually like mountain biking, so it’s plus if I can see those people.

Sabine Spitz of Germany riding during women UCI Mountain bike Marathon World Championships race in Graz

As I mentioned, Graz is pretty close to my home town, and with first start at 10:30am this meant, I don’t need to bother searching for hotels. On the other side, it also meant 2.5h drive on morning before race, and considering I’m not really happiest person on World if I need to wake up at 5am, this was also bad thing. But once my watch was showing 6:30am, everything was fine already and I was able to function normally :) Before I left, I had bad feeling already, and thougts like “Oh shit, I will be annoyed by those UCI guys again” were flying through my head. So I was pretty surprised when I came to Graz/Stattegg, and found out things are a bit different this time.

Murillo Sandra Santanyes of Spain riding

Christoph Sauser of Switzerland riding during men UCI Mountain bike Marathon World Championships race in Graz

Sure parking in that small village was a bit of a problem, but with press sticker and a bit of discussion, I managed to park almost inside of a press center. From here on, everything went as smooth as this wouldn’t be UCI event. Press center was good, internet was extremely fast, as it’s always in Austria, people were nice and helpfull, and suprisingly only UCI guy I have met was on finish line… and even this one was nice one.

UCI Mountain bike Marathon World Championships race in Graz – Stattegg

Pia Sundstedt of Finland in finish

After we have settled in press center, I put my things ready and walked out to get some pre-race portraits. There was very little bit of hectic before start, but nothing much, and everything went smooth. After start we jumped into 3 shuttles which organizer provided for photographers, and we were on the road. 2 of shuttles were following men’s course, while third one was following women’s course. I was in third one, which on the end proved to be best solution. There was one stop less, but on all 3 stops which we had, I managed to catch both men and women top riders.

Jukka Vastaranta of Finland riding during men UCI Mountain bike Marathon World Championships race

Track was really nice, and I cought myself thinking from time to time, how nice it would be to be on bike there not on foot with cameras on my shoulders. It was impressive to see those guys pedaling by, even though you don’t really see much of a race, when looking through viewfinder of your camera. But good thing with such races is, that you have more then enough time, so you can actually do some a bit less standard photos.

Pia Sundstedt of Finland riding during women UCI Mountain bike Marathon World Championships race in Graz

Winner Sabine Spitz of Germany celebrate her medal

On first stop, I was doing things standard way, so I had enough of “normal” photos. After that, I had enough time to fool around and try to make things different. Personally I just don’t like cliche photos all that much, and I try to make things different. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and sometimes, there’s just no way to do things different. But this time it was possible, and I’m quite happy with outcome. Last stop was finish line, which I was actually thinking we will miss. At least for men’s race. With few really good friends working for different agencies, there’s never problem to change few photos, so I didn’t worry at all about this. On the end, shuttle schedule was not even so tight, and I had more then enough time to sweat sitting on finish line for 20 minutes or so, waiting for first man to come.

Petra Henzi of Switzerland riding during women UCI Mountain bike Marathon World Championships race in Graz

With top 10 men and women in finish, it was time for medal ceremony and then running back to press center, which was actually just two floors above medal ceremony. When you are sending to 7 different places with each transfer around 3Mbps, things are over pretty fast. Only “problem” is to prepare 7 different sets of photos. But if it has to be done, it has to be done :) So before I even got hungry, we were out of press center and in car on way home. So all in all pretty cool day, and as I wrote before, for first time it was pleasure to cover UCI event. I wish it would be same in Mendrisio in one month time. But somehow I have feeling, this will stay just a wish.

More photos can be found in PhotoSI on-line archive:
- Men race of UCI Mountain bike (MTB XC) Cross country Marathon World championships
- Women race of UCI Mountain bike (MTB XC) Cross country Marathon World championships