The Original Mountain Marathon
Ready to Race the OMM Again
Rob Howard / 22.10.2009
Throughout the week competitors will have been watching the long range weather forecast, studying maps of mid-Wales and packing, then repacking their kit. At the event HQ at the Royal Welsh Show Ground in Bluith Wells and out on the course, preparations will already be underway by the volunteer team and organisers - it is nearly time for the 2009 OMM.Apart from the need to know their bus times to get to the start and the knowledge their car won't have to be towed off a field, the infrastructure changes introduced this year won't be noticed by the teams once they are competing. The choice of courses is the same as always (Elite, A,B, C, plus long, medium and short score), the terrain will be testing, and it looks the weather will be wet once again, as it has been so often in recent years. It won't be as wet as last year however, and there are no severe weather warnings in place for the weekend.
The published entry list for the Elite class does look a little different this time around however. There are no defending title holders after last year's cancellation, but the winning 2005, 2006 and 2007 pairs are not competing together this time out and the only former winning pair are Mark Seddon and John Hunt who were victors in 2004, which was the last time the event was held in Wales. (This is the 6th Welsh OMM/KIMM.) Familiar names from top 10 pairs are missing from the list, including the brothers Bolland, Symonds, Davies and the Harding (who are in the Long Score this year).
There are still plenty of strong contenders of course, from backgrounds in mountain running, ultra running and adventure racing, and some previous winners have new partners to race with. Team Inov8 are strongly represented with multiple race winner Steve Birkinshaw pairing up for this race with Jethro Lennox, winner of the World Long Distance Mountain Running Championship and this year's LAMM (with Andy Symonds). The other strong male pair from Inov8 are Chris Near and Tim Higginbottom, who have won mountain marathon titles before, but never the OMM Elite.
Al Powell is another former winner and he is racing with Jon Morgan again (they were 7th in 2007), while the 'young guns' of Chris Sellens and Ed Kelleher may also a threat to the top places. They are currently part of Team Boosh and have an orienteering background, and between them have won the B and C classes before and finished in the top five of the A class. Chris was on of the winning 'King of the Mountains' pair on this year's 3 Peaks Yacht Race and he is one of several mountain endurance from that race in this year's OMM. Others are Martin Beale and Martin Indge, who have the latest Elite start time (09.13), and Janet McIver of Team Accelerate, the former British Fell Running Champion who completed the Elite course in 2007 with Karen Davison.See All Event Posts
