Becoming the World Champion in your chosen sport is what dreams are made of and that’s just what former Borders College student Reece Wilson has gone and done.
Reece, from Gordon, was recently crowned as the elite men’s champion on the final day of the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships, held in Leogang, Austria with a time of 3:51.243, posted early on in the competition.
Reece put all his experience of wet and miserable Scottish conditions to great effect as he blitzed the course with a clean run and, of course, the training from his time on the BASE course would have been vital in achieving this.
Upon learning of his victory, an emotional Reece said:
“I don’t know what went right this weekend, I was ready for it to be wet or dry… I just believed in myself. I needed a year off, I used it productively and I came here and I believed I could be the guy who could win. And now that I’m here, I can’t believe it! I’ve worked really hard, and yeh – here we are.”
Run in conjunction with the world-famous Dirt School, the BASE Mountain Biking course is a performance-based, three-year full-time academic programme that allows the students to ride their bikes and work on their technique two days a week while attaining a recognised HN level qualification. It creates an inclusive environment that has allowed over 100 young people to learn important life skills.
