Vigo

Well, the 1st World cup has come and gone. It was quite the weekend! The track was completely unforgiving! Both NZ girls Scarlett Hagen and Vanessa Quin crashed and had serious injuries. Helen Gaskell also did not race as she injured her back. This was the same track I broke my ankle on last year. Good way to start the season!

4X: I felt fairly confident on this track. I only qualified in 6th place, but I was fairly certain that I could be in the final. When the semi final came around I spent most of the race in 3rd. Coming to the bottom of the course I gave a shot at jumping the road gap at the bottom. This would have put my atleast into 2nd place as neither of the leaders had jumped it. When I took off I am pretty sure I lost my chain and from there I had one hell of a crash! Thankfully I was going fast enough to clear the jump, however I still managed to land hard and slide quite a ways, almost to the finish line. The crash was good enough to make the front page of the Vigo paper and to be shown on National TV! I guess if I had to crash it might as well be a good one :) I managed to pick myself back up and grab a shuttle to the top but by the time I got up there they had run my small final gate without me. I was a bit upset about that but atleast I wasn't hurt too badly.

DH: was fairly uneventful. I think the number of crashes that occured this year combined with the memory of breaking my ankle here last year played on my mind a bit and I just took my time down the course. To be honest I am just happy that I have completed the 1st World Cup this year and I am still in one piece. I guess that already puts me a step ahead of the last two years! I finished in 12th place.

I am in Lisbon now getting ready for the Lisboa Downtown race. Time to shake off the cobwebs and get back up to speed and I figure racing down cobblestone streets, jumping over cars and down stairs in downtown Lisbon is the perfect place to do it!