"For me diamonds are not made under pressure": Cameron Mason explains World Championships failure

You would hardly ever find a more "up & down" career in the cyclocross world than that of British champion Cameron Mason. The 25-year-old has been on the brink of entering the discipline's upper echelon for many years now. But every time it seems like Mason's on the verge of a breakthrough, he falls right back to mediocrity with a result such as at a 21st place at the recent World Championships - stark contrast to his top-5 at European Championships at the start of this winter.

Mason himself is painfully aware of these inconsistencies, and so he went to social media to share his own perspective on why it is so hard to come on top his game in almost every race of the season, including the most important ones.

"I tend to perform by accident, as a byproduct of shooting for something else, chasing a different feeling or going down another path. A result on paper doesn’t do it for me most of the time," Mason begins his lengthy post on Instagram. "But it is the thing that matters in professional sport. So when a traditional big ticket race comes along, like World Champs, and the main goal is to perform, I find it hard to do what’s required."

He continues: "I think it’s because I spend so much energy trying to switch on, that I forget that I in fact need to be switched off to get the best from myself. Racing without assumptions, expectations and limits. As I do when I go for an average bike ride around Mid Lothian in June. For me diamonds are not made under pressure but found in the long grass off the beaten track."

Mason certainly does seem to prefer to "stay in his zone" before races, but sometimes you simply can't "just play down" the importance of the event ahead. And when that worm gets into Mason's head, performances tend to fall apart. Just like this past Sunday in Hulst.

"In a normal job I of course wouldn’t be writing about my bad day at the office online to thousands of people. But in a normal job I also wouldn’t have those bad days in front of thousands of people watching. That’s why I feel it’s appropriate to write like this publicly."

Obviously, Mason would prefer to always start in a perfect shape, but he admits that only through lows, you can truly enjoy the highs. "It is hard to tell what an ‘off day’ is anymore. But to know what an off day is you have to know what an ‘on day’ is. I definitely know what these days feel like. Which is why my current situation is even more difficult."

And just like any other athlete, Mason works hard to reach his best level. Yet sometimes not even the best legs can do wonders if the head is not fully in the game.

"I know how to train, recover, suffer, race, eat, sleep etc, and I know how to perform. But I don’t know how to do this all the time, at every race, on all the big days. Even though I know a lot about the things that make me perform, it’s in the small amount of unknowns that I have spent weeks looking into, analysing and worrying about."

"Despite the puzzle I write about above, I would not trade being mediocre for these moments of magic. I am privileged to feel these highs as much as I am privileged to feel these lows. I just have a short memory, like everyone, so it’s easy to forget the good and the bad as I continue to crack on."