The Australian team arrived in Warsaw at the end of July and had a week of pre-champs training to get ready to compete in the World MTB Orienteering Championships and Junior World MTB Orienteering Championships 2025 (held together they are known as J/WMTBOC).
Representing Australia are Victorian MTBO athletes James Robertson (M21) and Maya Bennette (W20), and from Tasmania is Will Whittington (M21). Maya and Will have competed in previous Junior/World Champs (with Maya finishing 4th in the Sprint in Bulgaria 2024). James is a seasoned M21E competitor in foot orienteering and will be making his international debut on the bike.
J/WMTBOC runs from 11-17 August and includes a gruelling schedule of five disciplines (with only one rest day) – Sprint, Middle, Mass Start, Long, and Relay. The races are all being held on the edge of Warsaw in terrain described as having picturesque forests, crossed by a dense network of paths, with very little climb.
In the Sprint the Men have only 20m of climb over 6.6km, and the Junior women have just 20m over 5.3km. Naturally the courses get longer each race, peaking with the Long where the Men have 37.5km with only 400m of climb, and the Junior Women have 24.7km and just 320m of climb. All the race details are in Bulletin 3: https://wmtboc2025.pl/sites/default/files/Biuletyn_NR_3_CX80_WMTBOC_2025_3-1_1.pdf
Adding to the navigation challenge (as if racing at top speed while reading a map isn’t enough), it is open to competitors to ride off tracks. This makes deciding optimal route choices even trickier – who knows what terrain you might find yourself having to ride over. Sand – seems to be the word on the street from MTBO riders who have raced in Poland previously.
The Australian trio held a pre-champs training camp in Ballarat/Maryborough in early July.
To follow James, Maya and Will: Keep an eye on the Orienteering Australia on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/OrienteeringAustralia/
Official Results will be in Eventor:
WMTBOC & World Cup: https://eventor.orienteering.org/Events/Show/7490
JWMTBOC: https://eventor.orienteering.org/Events/Show/7491
Other news can be found on the J/WMTBOC 2025 Website: https://wmtboc2025.pl/en/frontpage
