This race is an excellent example of what the Octathalon is like at the very top level. Here we have the UK's finest & fittest Masters Octathaletes (over 39's) competing for the 2008 Cup.

In the race we have Kirk Gibbons a past podium finisher in the Mens Open event as well as being last years Masters Champion, a place he shared with Mark Elliot.

Both finished in the same time last year and neither liked not being the out and out winning champion so this years race was going to be a cracker with both of them managing to get into this final and both out to prove to the other who was better.

However they were not going to find it easy as Neil Cameron had also made it to the final with a World Record time for the Mens Masters course and with a time of a couple of seconds ahead of the other two. In addition to that Paul Morton had dug deep to also get into this final and was only a few seconds behing the other 3 in their earlier rounds that day.

All 4 had a good chance at winning this race. Much would depend now on who had the best level of fitness, who had recovered best from racing earlier in the day and who would judge their run the best so that they could still get their shoulder press out in one go.

This is one of the most exciting races you will ever see, not least because of the extreme standard of fitness these guys have.

If you have tried to run through the course yourself, and are perhaps amazed at their times for the Octathalon Cup course, it is worth pointing out that these people have trained for more than 6 months just for this race and have all been competing for many years.

The Octathalon now attracts people of this calibre at its top end and these guys reach levels of fitness considered by many to be far higher than most Olympic Athletes. There are good, logical reasons why this is likely to be the case. You may need to ask your Octathalon Trainer what they are.