Finally the 2008/09 Bilbys World Champs were run and won and BETH HUBER is the new Bilbys World Champion. Beth wasn’t a novice this year, but she was last year so sort of keeps the trend of novices winning the event, alive.

The new race format proved enjoyable with 23 starters taking the line for the run/ride/drink/run event.

Competitors had the option of a short 1km run/4 lap bike (4.8km)/500ml drink/ and 1km run or the longer event at 2km run/ 8 lap bike (9.6km)/500ml drink and 1km run.

The only competitor who didn’t listen to his race briefing was head coach Gaz Rolfe who tried to do a second run lap and take a short cut for the start of the second run – I think he might need a coach.

Pregnant chickies Julia Lovell and Christine Palmer, along with Peter Johnson who did the ride on his nobbly tired mountain bike were off scratch in bright sunny conditions. Brad Palmer was the star of the event after he pushed son Tom around in a pram for the first lap of the run, then towed him for the 8 lap bike and finally carried him for the last run after the young lad got a bit tired. Tom was heard to be telling Daddy to stop after about 6 laps – think he’d had enough.

Shane Farrant put in the quickest guess for the day and went off last, almost 5 mins behind the 2nd last competitor.

The competitors had an extra challenge in that they to keep their eyes open as there were many blind and ignorant non-Bilby parents out at Stromlo who didn’t realise that a collision between their 2 yr old child on a 30cm tall bike and a time trial bike going along at 40km would results in only carnage. Thanks to Ursula for helping keep the kiddies at bay.

Beth put in a guess of 29.17 mins for the short course and completed it in 29.03 for a 14 second differential. Gaz Rolfe was concerned that he had over estimated his time because of a 2km 2nd run estimate proved unfounded when he came in, in 2nd place with a guess of 35.10 and an actual time of 35.47, whilst the pregnant chickies who did the entire course together came in 3rd with a guess time of 32.22 and an actual time of 33.04.

Jamie Magee, proud sponsor and participant, said to me before the start of the event that he wanted to win his money back but was ultimately the worst guesser of the day, winning himself a chockie wombat for a guess 6 mins and 26 seconds outside his actual time.

Beth won $200 and the prestigious trophy for her troubles, Gaz won $50 and the girls had to share $25.

Beth, Gary, Iain Cox and Michele Clement won their individual long/short, male/female categories and took home $10 each.

Beth also proved successful winning lucky barrel prizes as well – I hope she went home and bought a lottery ticket cos today was certainly her day.

Thanks to Mark Raymond for doing the timing duties and Kate Reid, Megan Rhind Kim Crawley and Joe Andrews for their help with admin duties. Thanks also to Shane Rattenbury who gave us a bit of a history of the Bilbys World Champs and how it used to be run in the ‘old’ days.

Results can be found here