A new team, a new language

Hi everyone,

Well I have some news to tell you with regards to what I will be doing next year. Some of you may have seen that my new team was announced just a few days ago. I will be riding for the Italian team, Nobili Rubinetterie-Guerciotti and will be based out of Bergamo, just north of Milano. So as you can imagine I am very excited about this! When the new UCI rankings come out next year my team is expected to be ranked around the top 3!

We signed Edita Pukinscaite and Modesta Vzesniauskaite (both from Lithuania). Aswell as keeping Olga Slyusareva, (Gold medallist in the Olympic Points Race and bronze in the road race from Russia), Alison Wright, (Australia) and a few Italians, there will be 15 girls all up, quite a big team. Not sure what my role on the team will be yet, I guess it depends on who has the form as we have a few good sprinters and a couple of strong G.C. riders. They have signed 2 other Russians who also do track. One of the girls; Oxana Kostenko just won the pursuit and was 2nd in the scratch race at the first round of the track world cup.

I am busy training for the track at the moment. I leave on the 1st of December for Oceanias then over to L.A. for the 2nd round of the World Cup. After that I will go visit my boyfriend back in Colorado Springs then be back in ChCh in time for Christmas. I'm really looking forward to racing the track as I haven't raced internationally for awhile. I will be back here in NZ through until March and I will be racing the first 2 rounds of the road World Cup, my Italian team is coming over so that will be cool to race with them and get to meet some of my teammates. 

Well I better get going and get back into my Italian books! I'm trying to learn as much as I can before I get there. I have to try and understand what they will be saying to me on the radio, I can't go and attack when they want me to go and get some water bottles!!

Thanks for reading,

Jo.