News
World Masters Championships 2011
Posted: 08/07/11
Great Britain took one of the largest master’s teams to the World Championships in Mountain Bike Orienteering this year, held near Ratvik, Dalana, Sweden. Approx 3 hours north of Stockholm the rolling forested hills and moraine, were challenging both physically and navigationally.
Unfortunately torrential downpours made Saturdays race, the middle distance final, muddy and sticky but the UKs leading 50+ women’s rider Charlotte Somers Cocks shone through to take Gold. As well as lots of top 10 placings in the other age categories, Sheffield’s Killian Lomas came 6th in the Men’s 40+ just 2 minutes off a medal.
Sundays race brought the riders back to Ratvik for the Long distance event. The UK riders, used to 3 hour plus events at home, lapped up the challenge and all got good placings, most in the top 10. Charlotte got Silver and Killian a Bronze medal.
Mondays Sprint distance event was back on the same area as the long but utilized a fiendishly complex area of tracks close to the event centre not used the day before.
Again the British riders performed well but again it was Charlotte Somers Cocks who came through to gain another gold medal, an amazing 4 minutes ahead of 2nd place, a huge margin in the sprint distance format.