Try to imagine yourself as an East European cyclist accustomed to cycling in much cooler weather. That is exactly what Slovenkia cyclist Julius Matovcik, a 28 year old lone rider representing his country valiantly does daily back home.
Once he got to Santa Theresa Park in the bay area’s San Jose, the sun told him different. It was red-hot to Matovcik, like landing on Mar’s crusty-red surface which on barefoot would be like walking on a BBQ grill.
Even his coach was concerned, and he had to tell Matovcik some tips how to stay cooled. “Drink plenty of water and get water doused on you,” his coach advised him.
That almost worked good enough but Matovcik still finished second place. He had so many obstacles to overcome such as the sapping heat, and being banged up resulting in a big purplish bruise on a nearly broken nose, with scrapes all over. It wasn’t a pretty run for the Silver Medal but worth the effort he trained for.
Many other challengers for the Gold either crossed with the finish line all banged up too or with excess salt washing up on their lips, even the cyclists’ shorts, as it happened in Wayne Langbein’s case after all the sodium pills he took to prevent from losing sweat. An ambulance stood by but there was no emergency to attend to, the EMT personnel only had to dress the fleshy scrapes.
Several of the cyclists had to walk or jog back with their bikes that had flat tires from the rocky mountain bike course, and they all refused to give up.
A prediction came true. Horwitz, WDCC’s director, put down Jurg Reyneke’s name as the “Racer to watch” in the WDCC Program Book for this particular Mountain Bike course, and the first place winner for the Gold is…none other than Reyneke!
Said Reyneke, “I played it smart by descending downhill passing the other cyclists. That was the key, because I knew that I was going to win.”
Italian team rider Michael Irsara finished 3rd, he seemed scratch free, but was still exhausted from the unrelenting heat. He sat smiling, as if he was a phantom ghost who followed all around the course without any mishaps to grab third place.
All of the banged up cyclists kept going like the energizer bunny to the finish line.
