It was a wet weekend in Vårgårda… Nice to be back in Sweden and nice to see all the best female riders coming to our country, sorry that we could not show better weather… The team time trail was held on Friday evening in pouring rain and strong wind, not the best conditions on a technical course with lots of slippery corners. We lost one girl already after 3 kilometers and we had only been training team time trail one time before, for about 40 minutes. So considering this and that we were racing against the best teams in the world we were happy with our 11th place out of 20 teams. Cervelo won over a minute ahead of Columbia on second place.
The rain took a bit of a break during Saturday just to come back on Sunday for our road race, it was pouring down before start but luckily it stopped about 30 minutes into the race and when we finished it had turned into a sunny day! The world cup in Vårgårda is one of the hardest courses on the world cup series because of its many corners and narrow roads and one hill that is very demanding. The lap is 11 kilometers and we did it 12 times. It was a few solo breaks and a serious break away closer to the finish but nothing lasted. I was a bit nervous before start cause I didn’t know how my legs would feel after the dip I had in France, so I was very happy when I felt strong and never had any problems to stay with the first bunch. Even though I am a bit disappointed with my placing. We were 40 girls to the finish, the last time up the hill Marianne Vos attacked and got away, Cervelo chased like hell and the speed was very high and I was too far back to do anything, so I finished in 22nd place in the end.
It was 114 girls starting and I have to say that the bunch felt very small comparing to the bunches from the previous stage races we have done with 170 girls! In that first bunch of 40 that were together at the finish we had 7 Swedish girls, a very good result for Sweden, the second best nation after Holland that had 13 girls in that bunch!
Since it was in Sweden we had many of our sponsors on site to cheer on us, it was much appreciated to hear them on the climb! Thanks to all of you for coming!!!
After the race I went with my parents back home to Falun, it was so nice to sleep in my own bed after almost 4 weeks away… Now I’ve got 2 weeks at home to recharge the batteries and do some training before it is time to race again, it is then 3 small races in Sweden, then another week before the next UCI race.
Interviewed at a rainy team presentation
Alriksson GoGreen: Jennie, Madde, Jessica, Monica, Malin, Linnea
It was wet when we waited for the start....
... but sunny after!!