Canberra Lead Up.
We took the van down from sydney on the long boring drive down to canberra. We got to the Canberra motor village to meet up with some of the team that had already been in camp a while.
The next day we went out to the track and it was raining hard and very cold i was frezzing and had 4 or 5 layers on. i rode a couple of laps and struggled up the climb with all the rocks and A-lines being difficult to do the first time you try them. i got to the top of the climb to the dreaded hammer head and saw several people come down hard on the rocks bellow. i had already decided not to ride the hammer head that day because it was raining but did it on my second lap with no real troubles at all.
After a few more days of training i had the course sorted and all my lines fixed in my head.
Day 1 racing was the u19 woman and u23 woman. i chose to stay away from the track and just go for an hour on tracks and roads around the camp.
U19 race
Got up had an apple and then my usual breakfast and then took my gear to the van with plenty of time to spare we got to the track and chilled out the i did a good 50min warm up on the rollers. and headed up to the start line. the race start wasn't that fast but the rode was wide and crashes started happening once we got around the first corner i got tangled up in two crashes and ended up being along way back into the first single track from then on it was fast pushing all the way to the hammer head and down the hammer head. there where a few more crashes in front of me to slow me down but apart from that i had no other troubles. the rest of the race i struggled on the climbs and couldn't get going as well as i had been earlier in the year. i ended up 60th 1 lap down and felt that if i had a better start i might have gone better but apart from that no crashes so not to bad.
Day 3 and day 4 and all the rest
After my race i could see how the big boys roll!! first up on Friday was the u23 race with race favourite Burry Sandler clearing out from the rest and showing why he has been getting top 10's in the world cups this year. best of the kiwis was Carl Jones who rode out of a poor start to work through the field for a good result.
Saturday was the Elite XC with racing being very close and the Mens race coming down to a sprint finish between olympic gold medalist Julian Absalon and last years u23 gold medalist Nino Shurcter. with the younger Nino have to much speed in the last kilometer of racing.
Sunday was the the biggest day for the Downhill side of the event with the juniors in the morning with team mate Brook Macdonald taking the Gold medal and a well earned Rainbow jersey. And the Elite men also doing well with Justin Leov in 8th place.
Finally i would like to thank all the support crew in Australia for all the effort that went into organising the whole thing. And i would also like to thank my sponsor that have help me along the way- village cycles, ibis cycles.
photos to come
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