March 5, 2009 (Liberec, Cze) – The 2009 World Championship came to a close last Sunday with the 50km Freestyle event. All four Australian competitors completed the distance, which was matched by only five other nations. Andrew Mock had a great start and was in the top 30 and the lead pack until he broke a pole near the end of the first lap, then a war of attrition set in. The final result was 50th place, 11.7% behind the winner Northug of Norway, with the other Australians Callum Watson in 52nd, Chris Darlington in 54th, and Mark Raymond in 55th – not at the top of the list but ahead of the dozen or so skiers who were lapped and pulled out from the race. It was a close call for Raymond who worked hard not to be lapped by the lead pack and then hit the wall in major fashion and was taken to the medical tent after finishing the race.

The championship opened well for the Australian Team, with two men and one women making it through the qualification races on February 18. These were contested by 55 men and 22 women, with the first ten finishers eligible to compete in the interval start events with the directly qualified athletes. Andrew Mock and Callum Watson finished 4th and 5th in the 10km Classic, just shy of the podium, then had to tough it out again two days later in the 15km Classic where they finished 70th and 68th. Esther Bottomley qualified in 9th place in the 5km Classic, however opted not to start the 10km Classic as she was concentrating on the Sprint several days later.

Aimee Watson was the only Australian in the other three women’s distance events. Watson’s results were consistent; 64th in the 10km Classic, 60th in the 15km Pursuit, and 53rd in the 30km Freestyle. Her best performance was probably in the Pursuit, where she was 16.7% behind the winner Kowalczyk of Poland, and skied a strong skate leg partially alongside 2009 US Champion Caitlyn Compton who got her by 13 seconds at the finish.

Ben Sim recorded the best individual Australian result of the championship, 42nd place in the 30km Pursuit, just over four minutes behind the winner and one place behind the overall World Cup leader Cologna of Switzerland. Sim was 52nd after the classic leg then steadily moved up during the skate leg. Sim also put in a solid performance in the 15km Classic where he was 61st on a day of very tricky waxing. Callum Watson, Chris Darlington and Andrew Wynd were 61st, 69th, and 74th in the Pursuit, all having to withdraw because of the overlapping rule on the 3.75km loops.

While Paul Murray and Esther Bottomley fell short of their pre-championship expectations in the Freestyle Sprint, the sprint day was a good one for the team with three of the men – Murray, Mark van der Ploeg, and Andrew Mock – making it into the top half of the field and Nick Grimmer just short of making it all four. Murray was the highest ranked in 57th place out of 132 starters, just 0.14 seconds ahead of van der Ploeg in 58th. Bottomley was 59th in the women’s time trial.

In the Classic Team Sprint Ben Sim and Mark van der Ploeg finished 19th out of 23 teams, mixing it with the lead pack in their first laps of their semi-final and then battling with Great Britain towards the end. Though Sim’s fall on the third lap helped the GB team break away, credit should go to the young British athletes who have taken big steps up this year.

An Australian Team was entered in the 4x10km Relay for the first time since 1993. With 3.3km laps being used it was always going to be a challenge to finish the race without being lapped by the leaders. Ben Sim and Callum Watson skied well on the first two classic legs but needed to pull something exceptional out of the bag for the team to have a chance. Andrew Mock gave it everything on the third leg, losing only a minute to the race leader over 5km but it wasn’t enough to make it through for Mark van der Ploeg to start the final leg. The boys ended up ranked 14th out of the small field of 15 teams – some nations apparently put off by the prospect of not being able to finish.

It was a busy championship for the support team and particularly for the waxing team of Robert Bergmann (SWE), Jeff Ellis (CAN), Cameron Dickenson, Robert Fischer (GER) and Finn Marsland. This was the first time that Australia has fielded a full male contingent in all six events at the World Championship and it was a lot of work. Special thanks also to Team Manager Brian Keeble, Team Doctor Jane Fitzpatrick, and to Andrew Wynd who doubled up as Team Physiotherapist.

The overall wrap-up? While the team goal of an individual top 30 result wasn’t achieved, Ben Sim’s 42nd place in the Pursuit was very impressive and acknowledged by many other teams and commentators as a fantastic result. Four top half of the field results (more if you include the athletes who didn’t make it through the qualification race) from four different athletes shows that the depth of Australian skiing is improving and we are not relying on just a couple of athletes to perform. Congratulations to all eleven team athletes for their professional efforts at the championship and great personal sacrifice and commitment just for making it there as well.