-
The rain made it hard to tell. U8s race was all at the top of the course but we were marshalling down the hill near some woods. Just before his race, a little kid (maybe 7yo) comes hurtling down the hill and stacks it near us. Already on the verge of tears. We pick him up and ask if he's OK and where he's going. He says "my mummy told me to come down here for the race". His mum comes down the hill and it turns out she sent him to do warm up shuttles.
We go up to watch the race (the organisers asked marshals to cheer the kids, which is an excellent idea) and this lad is just hating life all the way round. Pushy dads telling daughters on Frog bikes to "pick up the pace" in the same race. A commy ended up telling him to STFU.
Later, in the u10s/u12s race, we were marshalling a hairpin at the bottom of the hill. on lap 1, girl comes through clearly not very experienced and basically skid stops at the hairpin. Almost falls off. Race leader is right behind her and gets held up and screams at her to "get out of the way" then bombs up the hill. So us marshals have to reassure her while she manually re-angles her bike. Leader doesn't come round again, so I hope he either got a mechanical, or, even better, got pulled for shithousery.
How many kids were crying?