I got home quite late last night from the races in Germany. It was a hard weekend. We left on Friday and the trip took a little longer than normal because of lots of traffic and sections of roadwork on the normally "free speed" sections of the German autobahn.
Saturday was really hot. Especially considering its April. First up was the 500m. I didn't race this. There were 20 heats in total. After four rounds it was won in a tight finish by Yann Guyader. As it got even hotter there were more and more crashes.
The first of the long distance races was the 10,000m elimination. The first heat had to be stopped due a serious crash quite early on. I started the second heat from last position. So the first few laps was all about getting to the front as quickly and as safely as possible. All of the top names finally got sorted into some sort of order, and everyone qualified quite easily. The final was an hour or so later, and 60 men lined up. On each lap for most of the race, the last 2 skaters were taken off the track (eliminated). This wasn't such a good race for me personally. With about 10 laps to go, the officials, strangely enough, stopped the race because too many skaters weren't leaving the track once they were eliminated. Diego Rosero from the Sportvital Rollerblade team won the race.
Sunday was a bit cooler. Again we started off with heats, this time for the 10,000m points. Points were up for grabs on every lap. My heat was a case of scoring a couple of points and then saving as much energy as possible for the final.
The final started off at a crazy speed. Right from the start a group of three skaters broke away, including Thomas Boucher of France. Once that was caught, I attacked. I spent two laps alone and then was caught by Nicolas Iten from the Sportvital Rollerblade team. We worked together for about ten laps trading the lead and sharing the points. Once we were caught by the pack, I tried to slot in as close to the front of the pack as possible. Again Boucher attacked and I followed him. However the pack caught us on the last lap. In the end both Iten and I had 18 points, but because he beat me over the line, he took the win.
This was a nice event. However, at times I thought it was a bit dangerous and the officials could of done a bit more to make it safer. For example, instead of 60 skaters qualifying for the final, they could of made it 40 or so. Or maybe they should have created a separate category for national team skaters.
Tomorrow I'm off to a race in Liechtenstein. It's a 40km race on a 1km lap, with a points lap every 5 laps! So that will be an interesting race. I don't know how hard I will race it with the WIC team time trial on Saturday.
Also this Thursday we have to do a little thing for the Swiss TV as a preview for the race this weekend.
Thanks
Scott.
3 comments:
Hi, Scott. Thanks for your cool blog! ... You said the 10km elimination wasn't such a good race for you. ... Did that have something to do with the officials stopping the race? (That sounds pretty disruptive!) ... I was also wondering whether team work was a factor in Yan Gayandur's win?
Do you have a link where we can see your tv thing before the Basel tt?
1) Yes it was the first time where the officals have physically stopped a race mid-way through. I never really got going again and was eliminated soon after. Yann's win in the 500m wasn't so much a result of team work. He came from 3rd position on the last corner.
2) I'm not quite sure about a link, but I will know more tomorrow.
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