Jennie Stenerhag

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Tour of Chongming island

2011-05-15

After 6 days at home it was time to pack the bags again, this time it said China on the flight ticket. It was close that the trip ended at the airport in Sweden… when we checked in the lady at the counter said “this is not a visa”, when our manager showed the papers that he thought was our visas… After 1,5 hours of waiting they finally let us check in, we were so late so all we could do was to run to the gate. When we came to Beijing we could use the “visa self service machine” and sort out the visas! 24 hours after I left my home in Falun we arrived at the hotel on Chongming island outside of Shanghai. Local time was 8.30 pm and since we had missed one nights sleep it suited us very well just to go to bed.

Luckily we had one day to adjust to the time difference before the race started. It was a sunny and warm day and we had hoped for that weather for the race.

The morning of the first stage out of 3 was a grey and rainy day. I don’t think that I have ever raced in that much rain and water, it was pouring down from start to finish and there were deep pods that we went through. It took some hard work to get the clothes clean after!! Due to the weather and the flat course the race was slow and everything stayed together. There were a few crashes on the slippery roads, I was happy to stay on my bike the whole time. I had a bit of a sore throat before start and this weather did not help to make it better…

It was a very fast bunch sprint, I was trying to help Bella at the end but only managed to help and do my job until the 3km mark, she did good on her own after that and finished 9^th, I finished in the bunch.

Stage 2

The weather was a lot better today, no rain! The race started slowly until the 30km mark when the speed went up on some technical parts and passed the first sprint of the day. Luckily the pace slowed down after that cause I punctured and had to stop for service. For a bit it was very very slow but then suddenly the pace went up radically and the gutter made the bunch split in to pieces. We had been at the front the whole day but just as it happened we found our selves (the whole team) at the back, we chased hard to catch the group in front but that was not the first group. We and Lotto chased hard to try and catch the front group but without success… It was a big disappointment for the team not having anyone in the first bunch…:-(

Stage 3

Don’t have much to say about the criterium today, I have had a cold since we came here and it was a bit worse today, decided to start but body did not respond at all, it was not a fast race so I managed to sit in the bunch to the finish. Now I just have to recover and get well for the world cup on Sunday…

Sunday:

No world cup for me... I was sick and had to stay at the hotel when the others raced. Not fun but that is life sometimes. The team had a good race and got a top 10 and the teams best world cup result ever! Well done!!