Beautiful mountains
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Our trip certainly was an epic, 60hrs of travel, 6 flights and we visited 4 countries! We did have some fantastic views flying into Santiago, Chile and across the Andes to make up for some of the hassle! We finally arrived at our hotel at 2am on Thursday morning along with our bags which can be nothing short of a miracle. We had landed into Sao Paulo and we had no bags, so filed a report etc, we than landed at Florianopolis our final destination closest to the race and there were our bags!! I think we may have had the most travel time, but many people had more bad luck and did not receive their bags and or bikes for several days.
I awoke on Thursday morning in a big sleepy daze to be greeted by rainy weather, not what I had hoped for in Brazil! It is winter there so it's expected unfortunately. I gathered up enough energy to help Paul build up my bike and then went and walked the track. It was pretty much the same as last year, but with as few new features, some more jumps and berms, all things that I think helped make the track have more flow and be faster. The main difference this year was the mud….it was just like riding at my home in the clay, it was so slippery as the underneath layer was still rock hard, it was just the surface that was like ice ! It proved pretty fun during the first practice day, but it soon dried up as we had no more rain after the Thursday night. I was not recovering well from the trip and left practice early on the Friday as I was not safe, I just kept crashing and had no strength or energy. I went back to the hotel to have a nap which turned into a good 2.5hr sleep!
The weather was much better on Saturday and the track was drying really fast. Practice went a little better for me although I still seemed to be on the floor a little too often! The schedule on Saturday had all been shifted forward, we had practice from 7.30am until 11 and then the 4x was all done by 3.30pm so that the whole town and country could shut down and watch the football!! It really was quite an experience to see the passion that Brazilians have for the game of football! I thought England was bad, but this was something else, shops shut, the lift even closed while the game was on so that everyone could watch it! The parties were also pretty mad after, and they lost, I can't imagine if they had won, I would never have got to sleep on Saturday night!!
Finally Brazil treated us to a lovely day of sunshine for race day and the track was now dry and dusty. I had a good qualifying run to take 1st and post a time of 2.40, with Rachel Atherton just pipping Sabrina for 2nd, both on 2.42. This was good for points accumulation. I then just tried to ride the same in the final and try harder in a few places that I felt were safe to take some risks and be safe in the technical passages. I rode pretty much the same as in the semi and went a fraction of a second quicker, but still on a 2.40. Unfortunately Rachel and Sabrina found an extra 2 seconds in the final and put me back into 3rd. Rachel taking her first World Cup win. I'm sure it will be the first of many as she is such a talented young rider. She also did me a favour and took some points from Sabrina. I was satisfied with my race, I felt like I had reached my maximum speed on that track this weekend and I really did struggle all weekend to recover from my trip and have the energy and legs for this track. So in the end with my qualifying and final result I maintained my overall points lead of 113 points going into the final round at Schaldming, Austria in September
Results:
- 1st Rachel Atherton (GBR) - 2.38
- 2nd Sabrina Jonnier (FRA) - 2.38
- 3rd Tracy Moseley (GBR) - 2.40
- 4th Helen Gaskell (GBR) - 2.41
- 5th Emmeline Ragot (FRA) - 2.41
After another long trip home and the purchasing of a new ticket because the airline we were supposed to travel with went bankrupt I made it and I don't want to sit on an aeroplane for a longtime!!! Unfortunately that is not possible as its only 5 weeks and I'm off to New Zealand for the World Championships.
So it's rest time and some good training over the next few weeks. I am planning to do a few races in the meantime so I'll keep you posted.
Tracy
Visit Tracy's homepage www.tracymoseley.com or the team website www.konalesgets.com
