The International Crocodile Trophy will start in Cairns this Saturday, 13 October 2018. Growing up with imagery from the event in faraway Down Under on TV in Europe from when we were kids, the Rocky Trail crew has had “love-affair” for decades with this legendary mountain bike stage race, which will be held for the 24th time this year.
At the start for the ninth time will be our Managing Director Martin Wisata. For two years he was in the lead car marking the course in 2008 and 2009 and since the following year he has been a competitor, currently holding the in-official record of most completed “Crocs” in the world. He has had quite the journey from “crawling” across the finish line in the first year to racing for podium positions in recent editions.
Rocky Trail’s Marketing Director Juliane Wisata will be part of the organisational team again as the event’s Communications Manager, reporting about the race world-wide.
About the 24th Crocodile Trophy
This year the eight-day stage plan has been revamped and will take competitors of 16 nationalities from the rain forests from Cairns to Lake Tinaroo into the bushlands around Herberton and into the Outback and Irvinebank. The event that is endorsed by the International Cycling Federation UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale) will travel via remote mining trails towards the tropical Skybury Coffee Plantation and via the historic Wetherby Station towards the finishing town of Port Douglas. For the first time the official timed finish will be at the bottom of the infamous Bump Track just outside of town and the entire peloton will ride across the finish line on Four Mile Beach together.
The stage plan of this year’s Crocodile Trophy was set by the new General Managers Regina Stanger and Koenraad Vanschoren. Both are former Crocodile Trophy finishers and experienced stage race event managers – together with Croc-founder Gerhard Schoenbacher, Regina Stanger manages the Alpentour Trophy in Austria and Koenraad Vanschoren is the founder and organiser of the Belgian Mountain Bike Challenge. Both races are two of the most renowned mountain bike stage races in Europe and suffice to say that these two know how to find hills!
The 2018 Croc comes with a 700km stage plan that will include more than 15,000 m of climbing resulting in a completely revamped and versatile stage plan, which includes many of the most popular elements from previous years.
Several big names in the international and national mountain bike endurance racing scene will be at the start to fight for the victory, including Urs Huber who will try to make it his fifth. Soren Nissen, the Luxemburg National Champion and the Swiss Konny Looser are in the mix as well. In the women, we have former Croc winner Sarah White from Cairns and the newest name on the national MTB racing scene, Lucy Coldwell who is an ex-elite road cyclist who represented Scotland in the 2014 Commonwealth Games and has caught the MTB racing bug over the last 12 months.
Good luck to all the racers!
Links:
> Martin Wisata’s journey to #croc9
> Juliane Wisata about the Crocodile Trophy
> The Il Pastaio/Rocky Trail Racing owayo and Lazer Helmet team gear for 2018
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