neVenEvEneveNeveNeven: Andorra World Cup

Andorra is breathtaking, period.

We rolled up to Andorra from beautiful Sitges, just south of Barcelona, to find not so warm temps and quite a bit of snow still on the mountain. I guess about 20 guys had worked really hard to remove the snow from the 4x track so it could dry out by the time that we showed up to race, and to be fair, they did a great job! I think there was some snow removal that took place on the DH track as well.

In true world cup racing fashion, the skies opened up and started raining on Wednesday and continued into Thursday. 4x practice was canceled, and we all walked the DH track in full rain gear and rubber boots if you had them! DH practice on Friday was a little bit rough for me being the first time that I was back on a DH bike on a proper DH track since I broke my ankle last October. It was a little bit daunting to have 200+ of the fastest guys and 40+ of the fastest girls in the world coming up behind me riding all tentatively! The track was super slippy with all of the rain, and I struggled, at best!

The sun came out and dried up the 4x track for practice and qualies later that afternoon. I was feeling pretty good on the track, but would have been appreciative of Thursday's practice session, as the track is really big, fast, and long with a lot of stuff to think about on each run! I didn't end up having a great qualifier and qualified 21st.

By Saturday the DH track had dried up significantly, and I was having a much better time on the track hitting all of the sections fairly well...just not all in the same run! I crashed quite a bit in practice in the morning with the ultimate crash coming on my last practice run before qualies. For no real good reason, on something that was not technical in the least bit, I stacked it really hard straight to the top of my head. I haven't hit that hard in a long time, and it left me sitting a bit dazed and confused on the side of the track for about 10 minutes. Needless to say, at that point, I decided that I didn't think I was quite ready to do my first world cup DH, and I made the call to sit it out and get sorted for 4x finals that evening.

I didn't have a great qualifier for 4x coming in in 21st. In the first round, I had Anita Molcik and Caroline Buchanan in my first heat. I got a good gate, but Caroline had a great one, and Anita was on the inside after qualifying 5th. I settled in just behind Anita down the first straight and I guess Caroline grabbed a bunch of brake going into the flat turn after the first straight, and Anita's only landing option after the step up was running into Caroline's wheel which caused her to go down. I avoided the mayhem, narrowly and cruised down to advance to the quarter finals. I had last lane choice and didn't get a good gate in the next round, so that was the end of my racing for the evening. I was pleased to have moved up to 16th, though, after a not so great qualifier. My friend Fee, who I am traveling with, got the win for the night, so it was awesome to see her on top of the podium again...it's been way too long. Well, I didn't actually get to see the podium, as I got picked (so did Jo Jo) for doping control and was sat waiting to pee in a cup whilst the racing concluded and the podium presentation took place!