Photo courtesy of Petr Bures - www.MTBS.cz
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World Cup # 4 Schladming, Austria
Having had a lovely dry weekend in Les Gets it then proceeded to pour with rain for the next 4 days all the way to Schladming and then on and off for the first day of practice. It was back on the mud tyres.
The track was slightly changed from previous years, with the addition of a brand new wood section that turned to nothing but roots after a very short time into practice !! With the spike tyres, this was an interesting section and soon drew in the spectators looking for some carnage !! Fortunately the weather improved as the weekend approached and by race day we were back on dry tyres, but the damage had been done to the track and the holes and braking bumps were just huge and now baked hard by the sun. It really was a tough track to stay strong for the whole course. I was trying to where possible stay out of the main line and avoid some of the biggest holes to try and save some energy. I had a couple of good crashes during practice, but with no damage to me or more importantly my bike.
I was determined to really get some solid points this weekend and ride to my potential in the race and not just in practice which I have felt I have been doing a lot of lately. My plan started well and I qualified in 1st position just ahead of Tracey Hannah and Sabrina. This was great for my confidence and I knew I could win this if I just kept it all together. I had a pretty good top section, although I made a few mistakes in the woods, but I think most people struggled to get through there clean. The course then broke out onto the piste for the last minute of the track. This was the fastest and roughest part of the track and I had been trying to get out of the main line and avoid the worst holes. However I don't think this paid off as I passed the split I was 0.5sec down on the current leader which was Tracey Hannah, I then ended up losing a further 4 secs putting me back into 4th place when I crossed the line.
I just hadn't let go enough on the bottom section of the track and let yet another victory slip away. I was really frustrated with myself, but as always there is something to learn and take away from this race. However the consolation with my good points in qualifying was that I moved up to 2nd in the overall standings, with just one race left.
The finals results were : Tracey Hannah - 1st, Sabrina Jonnier 2nd, Marielle Saner 3rd, myself in 4th and Celine Gros in 5th spot.
CJ
