‘Iron Giant’ heartache for Wade Young

THE 21st edition of the Erzberg Rodeo took place in Eisenerz, Austria, last weekend, when 1 844 fearless competitors entered to conquer the Iron Giant.

Only 500 competitors would qualify for Sunday’s main race, the Erzberg Rodeo, after a qualifying ‘prologue’ that took place both Friday and Saturday.

Brother Leader Tread KTM’s Wade Young qualified fifth in time trials.

Young’s teammates Travis Teasdale and Scott Bouverie qualified on the vitally important first row, with a 24th and 32nd fastest time respectively.

Off to a good start, Young went into checkpoint (CP) 7, ‘Ludwig’s Land’, in third place.

After that the ‘no help zone’ started, meaning that no spectators were allowed to assist competitors.

Heading into well-known sections like Machine and Carl’s Dinner, Alfredo Gomez (Husqvarna) and Andreas Lettenbichler (KTM), managed to pass Young, but the talented rider from Paddock kept up with the pace and completed Carl’s Dinner in style.

With the section being way longer than usual, Carl’s Dinner found a lot of victims this year, but Bouverie and Teasdale did not give up and headed into the game-deciding forest sections.

When Walker, Jarvis, Gomez, Lettenbichler and Young headed into CP 19 Downtown, after almost three hours of riding, they had to help each other to overcome this gruelling section of the race with unridable forest sections where they depended on each other to get through with five riders pulling one bike at a time.

Spending almost an hour in the forest, riders were tired and exhausted with the day’s heat adding to their fatigue.

These true sportsmen agreed there and then to ride across the finish line together as, without each other, none of them would have made it to the finish.

The organisers realised that they would not see a finisher before the 4pm cut off and decided to cut out a few sections of the race, allowing the riders to finish with only a few minutes to spare.

It caused great disappointment however, when Young was told before riding across the finish line that he apparently missed a checkpoint around CP 18.

He was completely unaware of his mistake. Having helped the other four riders to get through the forest and not being able to share the glory has to be one of the hardest things to accept.

“Downtown was impossible to get up on your own and all the top five of us helped each other and agreed to all finish together as first. As I arrived into the finish I was told that I had missed checkpoint 18 and would be disqualified. From thinking I was one of the winners, conquering the Iron Giant, to not finishing is disappointing to say the least. But I will be back next year,” said Young.

Bouverie and Teasdale failed to make it to the finish line in time, but will be back for more blood, sweat and tears.

With a little disappointment still present, everyone who attempted to conquer the Iron Giant in 2015 is a true champion and while the world has crowned four official winners, South Africans in their hearts have crowned a fifth.
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