On Sunday Tereza experienced the race of her life in the German town of Offenburg, which hosted the second race of this years World Cup. Tereza’s 6th place was far beyond better than what Tereza and her fans hoped for!
Tereza’s biggest fear was before the start of the race, because the weather in the southwest of Germany was hot and humid all week until Saturday evening. She also felt big respect for the race track, which was very nice, but technically difficult. “On Sunday morning before the race I had to go and train on one part of the track which made me nervous, because I only trained on the left trail and didn’t really know what the right trail looked like. In the race, once the heavy rain started, it was possible to ride only the right trail, so it was a good decision to train in the morning.”
Right after the start Tereza was riding around 20th place, however very soon she started taking on one racer after another and managed to move up quite quickly to 12th position. In the middle of the race the cloudy sky gave in and the rain started pouring down which dramatically changed the running of the race. Those who think ahead are prepared, so Tereza didn’t have any problems with the muddy and slippery track. Thanks to the weather forecast she decided together with her mechanic and coach to change her tires do Rubena Charybdis, which are suited into muddy and rainy weather, and proved to be a good decision in the second half of the race. “I was really nervous, I knew that in training I didn’t really ride some passages too well, I was afraid it would be just too difficult in the mud. But it wasn’t! I didn’t fall once and actually felt and rode better than in training. It was a good decision to change the tires before the race, some girls had big problems on the track,” said Tereza.
Tereza knows how to ride in the rain, she already proved it last year during the World Cup race in Spa, Belgium, where she finished in similar weather conditions in 17th place, which was her best in 2006. “As soon as it started to rain I knew the race was going to be mine. I immediately started to move up front,” described Tereza the situation when the weather changed. Tereza kept moving forward towards the finish, at one point she was even in fifth place, however the German rider Spitz caught up with her once she fixed her defect. Tereza even managed to ride off from one of her biggest rivals in the U23 category, the Chinese Ren Chengyuan, and came to the finish in a fabulous 6th place! She was so happy and moved that she just had to let the tears roll down her face. “I never believed that the dream I have for so long would come so soon in my career. When I was passing all those cross-country stars I had big problems keeping my concentration, I was so excited and nervous that I would do some kind of a mistake and ruin it all,” she explained her feelings during the race in the finish.
Tereza improved her overall standings by 5 positions, in the third World Cup race, which will be in Champéry, Switzerland, she will be starting from the first line with number plate 7!
No comments:
Post a Comment