Another night in a noisy travel lodge, and another early morning flight in a brightly coloured plane (pink this time not orange) and The World Cup circuit moves to Poland this week for a long weekend of competitions all to be held within 10 km of the city centre. Held alongside the World Cup is the first World Masters MTBO Championships, the European Junior and European Youth Cups.
Whilst the World Cup riders will be enjoying sprint, middle, long distance and mixed relay events, the World Masters have a testing series of long and ultra long races culminating in a chasing start last day on Sunday.
With many of the UK’s more experienced world class riders also being eligible for the masters competition it is hoped that the masters team might bring home a podium or two.
Joining the UK World Cup team of Em Benham and myself for the first time is Bobby Smyth from Northern Ireland and returning to international competition, this time on 2 wheels is Heather Munro, one of the UK’s top foot orienteer’s of the late 90s and early 00s.
After a fantastic 7th place at the last World Cup long race in Hungary and her studies now out of the way Em is gunning for her first senior elite podium.
Great Britain masters team riders to watch are:
Charlotte Somers Cox, Sarah Bayliss
Andy Conn, Bryan Singleton, Dickie Jones, John Rawden, John Houlihan,Tony Brand Barker, Keith Dawson, Ian Roachford
Hopefully live results and info will be available all weekend on the event website but I’ll do my best to blog daily to.
is it sad that I log on to read your blog in the same hotel?
yes