rbike Cham Ion Mat Mladin
•
I
at Mladin limped across the kitchen
floor of the home he built on 180 acres,
not far from where he grew up, an
hour outside of Sydney. His left ankle
wasn't recovering as fast as he'd hoped,
following surgery five weeks earlier. The procedure,
which he offered to show me a video of, was done to
repair a decade-old injury and the damage from last
year's crash at the Daytona tire test. With a test at California Speedway fast approaching, Mladin knew he
wouldn't be fit. So he capitulated on his initial refusal to
attend the Daytona tire test in early December. As
much as he detests Daytona International Speedway, he
knows that he has to get back on the motorcycle.
M
110 JANUARY 4,2006 • CYCLE NEWS
Then came another setback. A few weeks before the
test, the ankle still wasn't recovered enough to allow
him to ride at Daytona. Now the plan is test in Australia
in January, five months after the operation. Not that he's
been idle.
On the morning I was to visit Mladin at his home, he
e-mailed to ask if I could come an hour later. He'd been
working on his immaculately landscaped property and
hadn't gotten out on his bicycle ride. If I came at I p.m.,
instead of noon, he could get in his three-hour ride. This
was two days after the Australian Grand Prix, in midOctober, and he was already working toward 2006.
"I had a couple of weeks off, actually [after the
surgery on September 9) since then, I've just been
riding a little bit."
Three hours isn't a little bit.
"This week I started picking it back up again - started getting back into it."
A month later Mladin realized he'd overdone it. He'd
worked too hard and hindered his progress. It wasn't
the first time. In 2003, Mladin overtrained to the point of
making himself sick. He contracted Epstein-Barr, a
fatiguing virus that struck, most notably, during the first
World Superbike race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. It
didn't stop him from winning his fourth AMA Superbike
title, nor his fifth, nor his sixth. But he did have to change
the way he approached fitness and nutrition.
Mladin originally broke his leg and ankle in an ultra-
