European Masters in Maderia: More gold for Team GB
- Dec 6, 2025
- 3 min read
When most people think about ‘time off’, they picture beaches, good food and maybe a gentle walk.
When Karl Hick, CEO of Phoenix Sustainable Investment Holdings, takes a break, he represents Team GB at the European Masters Championships in Madeira and races four times in brutal heat and hills. Karl was part of the Great Britain Masters Team at the recent event in October, where Team GB finished top of the overall medals table, ahead of traditional powerhouses like Germany and France. It’s a rare achievement and Karl played his part in it.
‘It was hot, hilly and hard work, but that’s what makes it worth doing.’ Karl Hick
Karl had trained for four races and Madeira didn’t make it easy. Temperatures pushed into the high 20s (mid 70s to 80°F) with high humidity, and the courses were anything but flat. On the cross-country and road events, the combination of heat, hills and altitude saw plenty of seasoned runners struggling and even collapsing, including on the 5,000m track.
Against that backdrop, Karl lined up for four events across cross-country, track and road:
• 8k cross-country: a demanding course made harder by altitude. Karl finished on the podium and helped Great Britain secure a team medal in the event.
• 5,000m on the track: not his strongest distance on paper, but he still finished third in the B race (the field was split due to numbers), and the British team took gold overall.
• 10km road race: Karl clocked just over 43 minutes in the heat and contributed to Great Britain’s team gold in the event.
• Half marathon: on a hilly course in high temperatures, he ran an impressive 93 minutes, again finishing on the podium and contributing to another team gold.
In total, Karl came home from Madeira with two golds and two bronze medals, a mix of individual and team successes that underline both his consistency and the strength of the British squad.
‘I went out hard in the half marathon and paid for it in the last four or five kilometres,’ he admits. ‘I’d died on my feet by the end, but I still held on as second scorer for the British team. In that heat and on that course, I was happy with that.’
One of the stories Karl was most keen to share from Madeira wasn’t about his own races at all. His brother, Wayne Hick, is a well-respected coach and was working with Paul Grange, one of the favourites for the 800m and 1500m in the 45–50 age group. Karl turned up to watch and only then realised quite how good he was. Paul, an ex-professional boxer who switched to athletics, went out as European number one and won double gold in the 800m and 1500m, dominating two highly competitive races.
‘Wayne told me Paul was good. I didn’t realise how good until I watched him. He absolutely destroyed a field of very strong runners. He was stunning.’
It’s a nice balance: one Hick is still competing and collecting medals, another quietly coaching athletes to European titles. Between them, performance, discipline and patience are clearly a family trait.
Karl is always quick to say that he doesn’t want stories like this to be ‘all about him’. But they do matter.
What he does in his ‘spare time’ reflects the qualities that define both his leadership and the culture of Phoenix:
• Resilience: racing four times in extreme conditions is as much mental as physical.
• Team mindset: several of Karl’s medals came from team events, where every scorer matters.
• Long-term discipline: success at Masters level comes from years of consistent training and preparation.
Those same qualities underpin Phoenix’s work in housing, retrofit, flood resilience, renewable energy and community projects: thinking long-term, building strong teams and doing the hard yards, even when conditions are tough.
Karl is now continuing his training with a dedicated block in Lanzarote as he prepares for the World Triathlon Championships, where he will again represent Great Britain in Qatar.