The last few members of the 8 person WOC team are exiting Australia shortly.  Cath Chalmers and Jenn Graham-Taylor have been racing MTBO and adventure races successfully in WA in preparation.  David Simpfendorfer warmed up with a wins in both the sprint and long NSW Champs at Nowra recently.  Four of the team contested the Polish 6 day event in similar terrain recently. Alex Randall and Paul Darvodelsky have a training base in Warsaw and are racing local events.  Adrian Jackson is doing a MTB stage race and will return to Warsaw soon.  Melanie Simpson gained a lot from her Polish races and is working and training in Norway before returning.  Thorlene Egerton is based in England and will be doing a Swiss MTBO event en route to Poland.

The Aussie training camp commences on Aug 17th at Nowa Kaletka. Riding on the right hand side of tracks; investigating the ride / run your bike across country route options (as allowed in Poland) and getting used to the 2.5m contours will be part of training. We move into our cabins at Hotel Anders, in the small village of Stare Jablonki for WOC from August 24 -31st.  The nearest big town is Olsztyn, some 30 km NE.  Entries for WOC are: 28 countries, 122 men, 76 women.  For the inaugural JWOC MTBO there are: 21 countries, 62 men and 40 women.  Finland, Russia and Poland have full teams of 12 in JWOC.

The Australian team is an exciting blend of experience and new talent so watch this space to see how they all get on.  Also look out for the NZ’ers as they have 3 men and 3 women in WOC and 1 junior girl in Jwoc.