But not for reasons you’d expect. It has published the findings of the The National Public Health Service for Wales who found that ‘contaminated mud’ led to illness…
Many riders after the Builth Merida complained of vomiting and diarrhoea, so the NPHS for Wales sent out questionnaires to find out how many people had been affected and found nearly half of the 355 participants had suffered.
This has been put down to ‘mud, contaminated by sheep droppings’, made worse by wet weather that led to more liquid mud on the course. They’ve suggested re-routing the course to avoid sheep-poo next time. And they’ve also recommended that riders eat from wrappers next time, which sounds a bit bizarre, but could mean that riders were eating their sandwiches in their riding gloves…
Anyway, the full BBC report can be found here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/7759532.stm