Sydneysider Lucy Mackie has ridden the race of her life to take second place in the Middle Distance at the junior world mountain bike orienteering championships in Lithuania.
By our calculations, this makes Lucy the first orienteer from NSW to win a medal at a world championship.
Lucy finished just two minutes behind Czech star Veronika Kubinova, who is widely considered to be just about unbeatable in the sport.
Very muddy conditions in the capital Vilnius put a premium on fitness and technical skills and, after dropping two minutes to the first radio control, Lucy powered around the last three-quarters of the course on par with Kubinova.
Lots of rain and mud made some of the hills unrideable, though running up a sloping mountain with a bike was also challenging – very slippery! Read Lucy's race report here.
There was more good news for the family, the Big Foot club, ONSW and Australia with younger brother Fergus recording a top-10 finish in the junior men's, finishing 9th.
Newcastle's Glen Charlton was 67th in the senior men's race in a tough MTBO WOC debut.
FRIDAY UPDATE: Lucy gained another top-10 result with a 7th placing in Friday's Long distance event. Fergus was 24th and Glen was disqualified. In Wednesday's Mass Start race, Lucy dropped a map and as a result had a dnf recorded, Fergus was 35th and Glen mispunched.
The championships finish on Saturday with the Sprint event.
