Frustrated at Flanders
Hi there,
Well yesterday at the Flanders World Cup was a great day for me until about 1200 metres to go! I was in a group of about 15 girls who got turned the wrong way just before the 2nd to last corner. I still can't believe it happened now and its the day after. Up until then the race had been good. My team, Nobili, had 4 girls in the group and were always in the front in the final kilometres. My climbing legs had come back after a couple of weeks of motor pacing for the Track Worlds, I didnt really know what to expect for this race but was pleasantly surprised! Our group were to be sprinting for 3rd place as Mirjam Melchers and Susanne Ljungskog were away in front with about 30 seconds on us, then disaster struck as the motorbike leading us took us the wrong way (or was directed the wrong way). This is only the 2nd year for the race for the women so we didn't really think anything was wrong till a few hundred metres down the road, then all of a sudden we were in front of the finish line! Crazy I tell you. By then it was too late to turn around as we were watching the next group come in who were about a minute behind us. So all of us got a DNF for our hard 112km effort over 3km sections of cobbles and also 12 very hard and steep, (sometimes cobbled) climbs. Yes, that guts you. The only ok thing was that they didnt award World Cup points for this round, but still, I needed points to move up - I am still 10th I think.
Now I am in the north of Holland just hanging out at our hotel waiting for the next race which is the Ronde Van Drenthe which starts this Friday. It is a 3 day tour with more cobbles, but apparently even worse than the sections in Flanders, these ones are through forests and hurt even more - looking forward to that!!
Ciao a tutti.
Jo.
