What a fantastic year for Steve Clayton culminating with him being presented with certificates and a trophy by no other than Sir Chris Hoy at the British Cycling Annual awards ceremony and 50^th anniversary celebration in Manchester a couple of weeks ago.

After the British Championships in June and my selection for 
the British Team Mid July saw me part of a team of three British men and five 
women traveling to Tel Aviv in Israel to take part in the 7th World Mountain 
Bike Orienteering Championships. The events spread over the week consisted of 
long distance qualifier, middle distance, sprint, relay and long 
final.

This week sees the second hosting of the European Masters Cycling Championships, an event for riders over 30, at the Manchester Velodrome.

On Wednesday two of the Lichfield City Cycling Club members were riding in events with realistic medal prospects and did not disappoint.

Competitors from 23 countries, after spending a day on training maps and bike fettling after long journeys, first headed south to Bagsveard for the Sprint Race, held at the site of a rowing club, complete with spectator bleachers offering fantastic views of both the spectator control and finish straight.

The map was very small (A4 1:7500) and the planner used the complex track network to its full potential by taking all the courses through it twice, with a spectator control / map exchange at the mid point. The British senior elites struggled with keeping the balance between speed and navigation in this terrain but Killian Lomas produced a solid 50th only 6 mins off the pace and Charlotte Somers Cocks gained the only world ranking points of the week with 33rd. Chris Brand Barker riding in JWOC gained a creditable 29th  - 6.5 mins down on the Czech Gold medallist who won by a clear 45 secs.