Photo GB team:

Back row - Will Rigg, Daniel Stansfield, Dane Blomquist, Joe Woodley, Sssha Chepelin, Harrison McCartney

Front row - Alice Rigby, Julie Emmerson, Sarah Jones, Jenny Ricketts, Megan Carter-Davies, Fiona Bunn

After a full day of travelling on Wednesday 6th July, the British team arrived in the town of Scuol in the Engadin valley of Switzerland ready for JWOC 2016 writes Fiona Bunn.

The stunning mountainous scenery makes us all want to be out there running already but we are having to restrain our enthusiasm for now so we come into our competitions fresh and ready to race!

Our time has been spent visiting model and training maps and gradually becoming more confident in the terrain: understanding the mapping style and what techniques will be most useful for navigation, as well as getting used to the warm climate and experimenting with shoe and kit combinations. Harrison said “The terrain was very similar to what we had experienced before in St Moritz”, so athletes who attended the pre-JWOC camp last August are well-prepared. We have also been spending some time running at altitude in order to acclimatise, as the Long distance in particular will be at an elevation of 2300m above sea level. Yesterday the ice bath recovery was standing (or swimming, depending on bravery) in a lake at over 2350m above sea level which had an iceberg floating in the middle. Despite the pain it was definitely worth it!

A lot of teams are staying in the same youth hostel as us, and we are excited to get to know them over the coming days, starting with the opening ceremony this evening. Julie (Women’s team captain) said “There’s a great spirit in the team and we are all ready for the first race to kick off tomorrow”.

We are proud to be wearing the new GB kit supplied by No Name and the additional support has been great with Heather Thompson (physio) ensuring we get to the start-line with our bodies in top condition, an osmo-testing machine from MMU to test our hydration every morning (and scores posted by Jackie on the corridor for everyone to see) and nutritional support from Fuel-It who have kindly provided us all with Beet-It Pro Elite shots and HI5 hydration tablets to help us maximise our performance during the race. Athletes have been trialling the beetroot shots with variable success!

The team this year and their disciplines are below:

W20

Alice Rigby (Debut) Middle, Long

Jenny Ricketts (Debut) Middle, Long

Fiona Bunn Middle, Long

Sarah Jones Middle, Sprint

Megan Carter-Davies Middle, Sprint

Julie Emmerson (Captain) Middle, Sprint

M20

Harrison McCartney (Debut) Middle, Long

Joe Woodley (Debut) Middle, Long

Daniel Stansfield (Debut) Middle, Long

Will Rigg Sprint, Long

Sasha Chepelin Middle, Long

Dane Blomquist (Captain) Sprint, Middle