Jenny Copnall of the Subaru-Gary Fisher XC Race Team tells us about he nightmare journey and how sometimes it just doesn’t work out the way you’d planned!
Having been selected for this event to make a rare appearance for the British team I had targeted the European Championships with a goal of a top 15 finish. My training leading to the event had gone very well and I was looking forward to some close racing against a strong European field. Unfortunately there seemed to be demons at work this weekend, the result of which was a very under par performance and a feeling of great disappointment at what may have been had circumstances been more in my favour.
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With a Sunday race I left home on Thursday afternoon to travel to the race. I was flying from Stanstead to Venice. At the gate, ready to board the plane a storm hit, water flooded in through the ceiling, lights crackled and computers cut out. After a while it was announced that our flight, along with 22 others, was cancelled. I have never before had a flight cancelled but with Ryanair is probably the worst time! After an hour fighting against flow to get back to where we started we were greeted with absolute mayhem. Nobody knew what was happening, how we were to get our bags back or whether there would be another flight put on for us. The answer was that it would take until midnight for me to get my bag back and there were no flights available until Sunday. I finally arrived back at home in the early hours of Friday, tired and having gone nowhere.
After a few restless hours of sleep wondering if I’d make the event I had a call from British Cycling to say that the only flight was from Bristol that afternoon. I had no choice, if I wanted to race I had to get that flight. So it was into the car for the three hour drive to Bristol. Things went a little better this time, until we reached sight of Venice. A huge storm led to us circling and then diverting to Bologna to refuel. A change of weather and heart meant that we didn’t eventually land in Bologna. Instead we did a U turn and headed back to Venice. Once landed the power in the airport went down, the luggage carousels ground to a halt and we waited and waited for a couple of hours for our bags… deja vue. I finally met up with Kelly (GB soigneur) and got to our hotel at midnight, absolutely exhausted.
Because official training had passed I had to get onto the course before racing began on Saturday. This meant a 6am alarm to get on the course for 8am. Due to the overnight rain the course was greasy at this time, making for some fun two wheel drifting. I realised how tired I must be when a small off pulled my lockout cable out of its stop leaving me locked out for most of the lap…. and I didn’t notice! I also found it harder than usual to learn the course, which was tough but not technical, and kept finding myself drifting around in a daze.
I spent the remainder of Saturday in my room, trying to regain all the rest and sleep that I possibly could and hoping that, with the adrenalin of racing, I may get my good form back by the race. Unfortunately this didn’t happen. I did have a very positive start only to get baulked at a bottleneck. After a lap I was suffering in the heat and struggling to focus. If someone had have put a bed beside the course I’d have gladly dropped straight into it! Midway through the race, and battling the strong urge to pull out, a cameraman mistimed his panning attempt in front of me on a drop off, sending me, my bike and his very expensive camera flying through the air. Covered in dust I got back on and set about catching the riders who’d sneaked past as I lay on the ground. Nobody was coming back to me quickly but I did manage to regain some places.
Eventually I finished around 25th but did get pulled with 1 lap to go. I haven’t suffered so much in a race all year but I guess I just have to accept that my body had no chance of performing optimally after such an exhausting and stressful preparation. I really needed a couple more days. It is always disappointing to miss a goal but events simply weren’t in my favour this weekend. I hope to amend this disappointment at the World Cup final in Scladming in September. This is my next international race since I have not been selected to represent GB at the World Championship. My next race is the NPS this coming weekend where I hope for a more normal race experience!
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