Day 14 // Competition: The Thief of Joy?
August 3, 2026
Words by Jake Thorpe
Photos by Michael Drummond and Tomás Montes
A Different Milestone
We are now two weeks into the race. In Kalamata, the finish line thrums with incoming riders. But further back, many are racing for a different milestone, against a different clock. CP3, Sarajevo’s Trebevićki Raj, closes tonight at 23:59CEST, marking the next stage in the gradual creep of the GC backstop towards Greece’s finish line.
Racing hard to make the cut-off, Mike Hall Bursary rider Jack Wright (051) was hoping to regain the week’s lost time. Having been slowed through Hungary after a crash left them nursing an acromioclavicular sprain – a partial dislocation of their shoulder – Jack continued steadily south, battling numerous punctures, hordes of hungry ants and the indefatigable wall of Balkan heat on their way. As evening approached, Jack closed in on the control, arriving just over an hour ahead of the cut-off to claim their third stamp of the race.
Like fellow bursary rider Luca Bessems (214), Jack has been making the most of the micro-mist pedestrian archways that pop up periodically in Bosnian parks – an urban cooling device becoming all the more common in warmer climates. These have, unsurprisingly, proven popular with riders down the Balkan peninsula. We hope the imminent prospect of a full submersion in the Ionian sea will help to propel Jack on their onward journey towards the Peloponnese.
Was it Good?
Yesterday evening, with the sun low in the sky, we welcomed our first bursary rider to Kalamata. Wojciech Wronka (095) arrived to the embrace of his mother and brother, claiming the rather satisfying finishing time of 12 days, 22 hours, and 22 minutes in his first Transcontinental Race.
“I think we were all confident he would make it to the finish line; we just didn’t know how fast,” explained Wojtek’s brother, as we watched his approaching dot thread its way through the city’s winding streets. Quick to nip any burgeoning hubris in the bud, though, he added: “some of his route choices, I think, were suboptimal.” Hubris, however, was never a danger for Wojtek. Twenty-fifth in the General Classification, he crossed the line with just one question: “Was it good?”
“I was only expecting to finish,” he beamed. “That was my goal.” Like Larissa Unsinn (346), who had arrived that afternoon, Wojtek had comfortably exceeded his own expectations. Reflecting on the experience, he described the race as one of many seasons. “First it was 100% racing, it was very fast; then it was problem solving; then it was adventure, with all the countries I passed through. It was amazing.” Now, at the finish line, Wojtek was happy to welcome the final season: rest.
It was a season well earned. A chance to reflect on a journey that represented the fulfilment of a long-held ambition. “I’ve dreamt about riding the TCR from the first time I heard about it, and now here I am.”
This is why the bursary exists. Wojtek, we are so proud; we hope you are too.
Yoga or Poker?
Sitting quietly, gazing out across the Messinian Gulf, Markus Zimmerman (174) was feeling pensive in the wake of his journey across the continent. Having suffered a similar fate to Jack earlier in the race – falling and dislocating his shoulder in Norway – Markus had wondered, for a moment, if he would have to bank the Norwegian stretch as the sum total of his experience this year. Return journeys had been scoped out – preparations made for a scratch.
But the shoulder had recovered. Bar some stiffness and a little soreness if slung out on the aerobars, Markus had been able to ride on. Last year, as his ride to Constanța had come to a close, Markus had compared his 12-and-a-half day ride to the practice of Vipassana – a contemplative technique that involves sitting in silence for prolonged periods in a particular position, typically over the course of around 10 days. In Markus’ case, that position had been on a saddle, elbows resting on raised pads, fingers curled around the skis of his aerobars.
This year, however, his comparisons were simpler – and, perhaps, a little less refined. Poker, rather than yoga, was the analogue. “In this race, you can only play the hand you’re dealt.”
Competition is the Thief of Joy
Rather too familiar with that maxim after his ride this year, Josh Ibbett (101) arrived not long after Markus to close the fifth chapter of his TCR history. The bee sting in Poland had cost time – about 24 hours by his estimates – but even before that stroke of misfortune, the race had proven more challenging than Josh had anticipated. “I think I’ve got more respect than ever for the TCR,” he acknowledged, “quite frankly, I don’t know how I won it in 2015.”
Having spent the last decade or more competing at the sharp end of the sport, riding a little further back this year had been a novel experience for Josh. “I figured if it went incredibly well, I might be able to squeeze into the top 10, maybe top 15,” he wagered, “but I knew quite early on that wasn’t going to be the case. I wasn’t quite on it at the start, to be honest, I felt like I was chasing my tail a bit.” But as the race had progressed, and as he’d recovered from the effects of his allergic reaction, Josh had started to find his rhythm. And not just his rhythm, but his reason too.
“I quite like that point-to-point; you know, we started in Norway and now we’re here in Greece, and we rode the whole way. That’s pretty cool, isn’t it?” The perspective afforded by occupying a slightly different position in the race had been a welcome change. “It has actually been a bit more enjoyable in some senses: staying in a hotel every night, taking the time to wash kit, being able to, you know, relax for two minutes. When you’re racing, you’re always on it, always looking over your shoulder.”
It seems to be a common revelation among riders this year: as soon as the race becomes too much a competition against others, rather than a challenge against yourself, it becomes almost universally less enjoyable. “Ultimately, it’s a massive time trial,” Josh concluded. “You’ve just got to get from A to B as quickly as possible.” Doing so, he argues, is better enjoyed as a simple act of self-expression, rather than a reaction to those around you.
Not a Bad Tally
And yet, competing with yourself rather than with others does not always guarantee a satisfying ride. As several returning riders from last year discovered, riding in your own shadow can sometimes prove taxing. Whenever expectations enter the mix, the possibility of disappointment is never far behind.
For Jakub Tomasik (355), arriving in Kalamata did not feel particularly celebratory. The young Polish rider had rolled up to his first TCR start line with weighty ambitions. Despite having held ground among the vanguard through much of Scandinavia and Northern Europe, from the second control in Slovakia, Jakub began to slip back, eventually falling outside the top 20 by the Balkans. Having fallen short of his target of 450 km a day, his prevailing emotion on arrival in the early hours was disappointment.
Yet for the 23-year-old cycle courier from Kraków, this is far from the end of the road. His appetite for riding appears nothing short of insatiable. Jakub began his journey into ultra-cycling seven years ago with a spontaneous 300 km ride on an old 90s mountain bike; since then, the numbers have soared. The 2,500 km he rode to Trondheim's start line, followed by the 4,800 km since, have brought this year’s total to a colossal 27,000 km, with a cumulative 260,000 m of climbing – just 2,000 km shy of a global circumnavigation. Not a bad tally by August.
Perhaps, with time, the scale of that achievement will come into focus. The result may not have matched the ambition, but the journey itself remains extraordinary. Jakub has plenty to be proud of.
Ten Kilometres of Sausage
Maxime Prieur (164), on the other hand, was the very definition of proud as he crossed the finish line this morning. “I just did the most difficult ultra-cycling race in the world on road. That was amazing.” Such elation, however, had not been the mood a few hours earlier. Maxime had been spotted walking up the hairpins of the Finish Parcours by a passing Josh Ibbett (101). Asked if his bike was ok, Maxime had replied, “Yeah it’s fine, I just don’t want to ride it.” His parting thought on his Transcontinental odyssey was as absurd as we have come to expect from the French presenter. “I don’t know if I have eaten more metres of sausage in hot dogs than I’ve walked this race,” he pondered. “It’s complicated.”
