World Cup # 7 Schaldming, Austria

Schladming is always one of the favourite tracks of the year for the majority of the riders as it is a long, steep and technical track, completely the opposite of the track in Australia. I always enjoy riding in Schladming but have never done particularly well. I always struggle with fatigue in my hands, so this year I really decided that I would try to do as little practice as possible to leave me feeling fresh for the final. That certainly worked as I really didn’t get any pump in my hands this year.

The weather played a pretty big part in shaping this years track. We had rain most evenings, with a particularly spectacular thunderstorm on one night ! However the rain came back in force on Friday night and continued on and off for most of the race on Saturday. It was not heavy rain but did enough just to make the course slick and really rough. I had a pretty good run in qualifying finishing in 3rd spot. I knew I could go faster in the final if I didn’t make so many mistakes. In the final I started off well but as I progressed down the track I just seem to make little mistakes everywhere and just be off line a bit and not carry good speed everywhere. I definitely did not ride as well as I know I could have down that track, but racing a track like that and to not make any mistakes is pretty much impossible. Unfortunately I ended up going slower in the final than in my semi final and ended up in 4th place. Rachel Atherton took the win by a huge margin showing that she really has got the ability to ride the long, technical tracks better than any of us this year.

It’s showed that I have some work to do this winter to be up there on all the different tracks on next year’s calendar. My 4th place on the day still enabled me to hold on to 3rd overall. After a poor start to the year I am pleased to have worked my way back up to the top 3 by the end of the year. However it was not the result I was hoping for at the start of 2008. I now have some time over the winter to put in the hardwork to improve in 2009.

Thanks to all my sponsors for all their support this season. Till next year !!

Tracy