Second race of the UCI World Cup season has finished very similarly to the season opener a week ago in Germany. Tanja took 40th place on the Sunday XCO race, which is again far from our goals, but it was a different kind of race that was in many ways much better.
Track in Nové Mesto na Moravě is very technical, rain and melting snow only made it harder. Tanja is of course use to it and knows every meter of the track. Unlike a week ago, she did had a very good start lap and managed to put herself in the position around 20th place. But it was not enough, she started to lose places in the first full lap and eventually dropped to the final 40th place.
“I’m happy that I had a better start and looks like I would need to continue in this rhythm. If there would be another race next week, I might keep up with the higher pace for additional 10 or 15 minutes,” said Tanja after the race, and added: “It didn’t work as it would have to, hence the very similar result. I have to look at the positives, so I’m neither happy or disappointed. I am where I am and I want to progress, actually I did prove today that I’m faster in many of the elements and I want to continue doing that till the rest of the season.”
Tanja opted to race her S-Works Epic this time around. “Bike selection was a no-brainer, terrain on this race venue is for the full suspension bikes. We also had very hard conditions, which only made things trickier. It was hard, I felt that I didn’t do as good on the technical stuff towards the end of the race,” explained Tanja.
Tanja did start the short track on Friday, not for the result, but for the activation. It was a right decision, she had to go on the track on her limit and this put her body & mind in the right place for the Sunday’s race. She knows she needs to work even harder on her starts and this is what is ahead of Tanja now.
It’s now time for the next set of hard & intense training sessions, and then racing again! Next scheduled race is international race in Kočevje, Slovenija, followed by the next World Cup round in Leogang.
Congrats to Loana Lecomte for another great victory!
Photo credits: Grega Stopar
