The racing started on Friday evening with the short track. I felt decent and was able to ride somewhere around 8th position for most of the race, but didn’t quite have enough juice left in the tank on the last couple of laps, missing out on a front row start by 1 spot as I finished 9th.
With the short track typically more of a struggle for me than the XCO race I was confident I could do well in the main race on Sunday. I got caught up in a bit of chaos at the start with the rider in front missing their pedal and then tangling bars with another rider. I fell back to around 30th as we entered the first single-track but was able to stay calm and composed, moving forward bit by bit. With 2 laps to go I was only around 30 secs off the top 5 podium and dug super deep to try and finish on a high. I was able to catch the rider in front in 6th but had absolutely nothing left in the sprint, having to settle for a very satisfying 7th in the end. After struggling immensely at altitude over the past 3 or 4 years it was a welcome relief to get a result like that, especially up at close to 2,000m in Andorra.
