"Success is not final,
failure is not fatal:
it is the courage to continue that counts."
Winston Churchill
UCI: Union Cycliste Internationale – cycling’s world governing body –
UCI: Union Cycliste Internationale – cycling’s world governing body –
UCI: Union Cycliste Internationale – cycling’s world governing body –
UCI: Union Cycliste Internationale – cycling’s world governing body –
2022 World Masters Championships - June 25, the Dolomites, Italy.
Discipline: Mountain bike - Cross Country Marathon (XCM)
The UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale), being the world governing body for cycling, organizes the World Championships every year. It does so in many disciplines (road, mountain bike, track, etc.) and for many age categories (women, men, elite, juniors, masters, etc).
This year, Max will be in the Masters VII category and given his experience and diligent training, he believes he has a good chance of making it on the podium. The best he has achieved so far was 5th place, in Brazil, in 2012.
This, especially that the UCI has introduced a new discipline (MTB Marathon - XCM) which suits Max better than the shorter (MTB Cross Country - XCO) he has raced in during previous years.
The road to the 2022 World Masters
20+ years ago, Max took the start of the 2001 UCI World Masters in Mt Saint Anne, Quebec, Canada...
... He placed 26th.
Eleven years later, in 2012, these same World Championships were held in Brazil, and after hard training and preparation, Max had high hopes for a medal. Unfortunately, having peaked too early (he won the Pre-Mundial; 6 days before the World Championship…) Max was no longer in top form on race day. He placed a disappointing 5th, narrowly missing the podium.
Five years later in 2017, after 6 months of diligent training - some of it at altitude, Max suffered a bad race-day - partly due to the hypoxia of the race course at the ski resort in Andorra. He finished 15th.
Max was so disappointed that only 6 days later, he flew to Germany to compete in a new UCI World championships discipline: MTB MARATHON. There, without adequate preparation, he placed 9th.
High hopes for 2022... and crossed fingers too!
This being the Worlds, with top athletes from the four corners of the planet...
... the stars have to 'literally' align for anyone to get to stand on the podium. Max has learned - over a 20+ year period, and often the hard way - that anything can happen on race day. He has also learned that the more diligent, regular and serious the training is, the more aligned the stars seem to be up in the sky...
It is therefore with great hopes and as much humility that Max will head to the Dolomites in June 2022, hoping to finally earn Lebanon's first-ever UCI medal - indeed the first for the entire region!
Max's UCI Masters Worlds sponsors
