Bassingthwaighte reaches Olympic target

MARC Bassingthwaighte says he realised his Olympic dream when he finished 30th in the Men’s Mountain Bike race in London on Sunday.

Bassingthwaighte timed eight minutes and 10 seconds behind eventual winner Jaroslav Kulhavy of the Czech Republic.Kulhavy won the race over 34km in a time of one hour 29 minutes and seven seconds, with Nino Schurter of Switzerland just behind in second place, while Marco Fontana of Italy was 25 seconds behind in third. The Namibian champion had set a top 30 target finish for the Games and was visibly overjoyed by his achievement. ‘I’ve reached my dream in life, this is the biggest goal I have achieved and to finish it off with the goal I set is super, I can’t explain it, it’s a feeling, man, it’s great,’ he said at the finish line.’I’m still a bit emotional, I’ve reached my goal and I can’t be happier. It was a really hard race but I gave everything and in the end it was worth the fight; this is everything I dreamt of and I am very happy that I could pull it off,’ he added.It was a great ride by Bassingthwaighte who improved steadily as the race progressed. Despite starting at the back of the 50-man field, Bassingthwaighte moved up steadily to 37th position by the end of the first lap.He maintained a steady pace and gradually moved up to 33rd position with two laps to go.With one lap remaining he had moved up to 31st position and on the final lap managed to improve by one more position to finish 30th overall.Bassingthwaighte said the huge crowd also spurred him on.’A lot of the crowd pushed me on with a lot of people shouting ‘go Namibia, go’ and on the last lap I got past the 30th rider, so I’m just so happy and I can’t actually explain how I feel right now,’ Bassingthwaighte said.’To all the people who have supported me the last week, with their messages on Facebook and Twitter and my family that pitched up here with my girlfriend, it’s absolutely amazing. Thanks to them, they are the best. And the support from Namibia that made it possible for me to come here, thanks very much, its super.’South Africa’s Burries Stander was the first African, coming fifth overall, 30 seconds behind the winner, while Bassingthwaighte was the second African overall.The other African riders who finished the race were Philip Buys of South Africa who came 35th and Adrien Niyonshuti of Rwanda who came 38th.In May, Bassingthwaighte finished well behind Buys at the African Mountain Bike Championships in Mauritius.On that occasion Buys won the gold medal while Bassingthwaighte got the silver three minutes and 44 later.