World Cup Wave

A solid but unclean run in La Bresse (photo: Michal Cerveny)

Dear readers, thanks for your dropping by. Let me update you on what’s going on.

I’m writing you from inside the glass bowle, that’s still solid located around my head. I’ve been struggling with a cold for a week now, meaning that sadly I was not at the top at the World Cup in La Bresse two days ago. I decided to enter the race anyway, but with a more “damage control” approach. I spend all Wednesday and Thursday in bed and only arrived in La Bresse friday afternoon. I went for some laps on the course both Friday and Saturday and could feel that I had to breathe more heavily than normally to get up those climbs. In the race itself, this once again was quite clear to me already on the first long climb. I did not have that extra power to follow the pace at the front. And therefore, I had to settle in to a more steady pace to get through the race. It was not a great race, but I was hoping to collect enough WC points to keep the leader jersey, which my 15th position allowed me to. There are more ways, in which I could look back on that race. I choose to say: “Under the circumstances, it could have gone much worse.”

So, this was kind of “last things first”. The full story includes a silver medal at European Champs in Sweden and another World Cup victory. In Albstadt in Germany I managed to pull off another fantastic race and won my third ever World Cup. I had such a good feeling on race day and I channeled all that into getting the most out of the race. I got a gap already on lap 1, rode hard for the next three laps and took it home safely on the last two laps, when I got the information that I had a 2 minutes gap to the chasers!.. Wow! What a race!

Taking a WC win wearing the leader jersey and no. 1 plate is one of the most special moments of my career. Photo: Michal Cerveny

On the Wednesday before the race in Albstadt Thomas and were out training close to where we live. At one point Thomas was behind me on a descent, when all the sudden I hear him screaming behind me. Not just a “oh, I almost crashed” scream. No, it was a “I’m in BIG pain” scream. It turned out, that in fact he DID crash and landed superhard on his shoulder. When I turned around and saw him all curled up, I was struck by the worst feeling ever. There’s nothing worse that realising that your loved ones are hurt. He was really in big pain. I rushed to assist him, having no idea if he was seriously injured. It took us some time to find out where the pain was located to. It was clear that his shoulder was not well. Partly in chock, partly in denial, partly in uncertainty he insisted on still riding home. I then insisted on taking him to the hospital shortly after getting home and at the hospital it was diagnosed, that the ligaments in his AC joint was almost completely torn. So now, full focus on getting that shoulder back on track. Mean while I still had a World Cup race just some days later. Thomas would still come with to support me despite his the discomfort and pain. Being able to win that World Cup on the day of his birthday was the least I could do.

As for now, I need to control my impatience to get back to training. It’s very hard to be sidelined. On the upside, when everything will run smooth again, the gratefulness and joy is going to be that much more intense.