IOF’s Senior Event Advisor (SEA) Vera Parizkova from the Czech Republic visited Falun and Säter in October 2021 to see how the preparations are coming along for this summer’s event. The pandemic has prevented her from visiting earlier and all communication had so far been done digitally. A visit was well over-due in order to meet some of the main people in charge at each location and also test the terrain.  

Decisive terrain
Vera Parizkova inquired about the situation when it comes to mapping and trail construction and also wanted to ride in the competition areas. The two mappers Oskar Sandberg in Säter and Steven Hale in Falun showed strategic parts of the terrain together with Säter’s competition director Per Sandberg. The IOF advisor was very pleased with the challenging and varying terrain that has been selected for the event, which will really put the participants’ skills to test.

The public can try the race courses
The championships races are held in the mornings and in the afternoons the spectators and other interested parties have the chance to compete or try MTBO in the same areas. Here they can choose their own level of difficulty and by that have a little less challenging race than the professionals.  Around 300 competitors in the WC and junior WC and even more people in the spectator races are expected to participate. This is the first time that the world championship is held in Sweden.