World Champs was a day to forget.
I had a great start from the 3rd row and was up the front by the first corner. It soon became clear to me however that my body wasn’t going to align itself with my high expectations for the race and I started going backwards faster than it felt like I was moving forwards. My legs felt completely dead and didn’t really improve at all for the entirety of the race.
I fought hard until the finish line, coming home in 41st and left to rue where it all went wrong.
I’d felt so strong at the World Cups in Nove Mesto and also for a couple of months prior. I think in hindsight I never fully recovered from a head cold I came down with on Saturday night before Sunday’s second XCO World Cup in Nove Mesto. Racing there while a bit under the weather really put me in a hole and I couldn’t recover in time for World Champs 6 days later.
Racing on a damp and soggy course in Austria only exacerbated the flat and dead feeling I had on race day.
Time now to turn my focus to next year and the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo. There’s plenty of fire in the belly!