I can’t remember the last time I crashed so hard.
I got invited from the Austrian Cycling federation to compete at the Downhill European Championships in Poland (WISLA). So of course I wanted to be part of this spectacle and got a ride in the Mondraker bus. Thanks to Maria and Wolli for that (+ the austrian cycling federation for paying my hotel)
All Austrian riders arrived on Friday afternoon and so did we. We did some training laps. The track was actually very difficult. Lots of lines to remember, big jumps, a very dry surface and lots of drops but it weren’t very long, which I liked. Training just sprints, gates and jumps for the last weeks for the up coming 4X World Champs didn’t include long downhill runs. So I liked the short track.
I liked all, the food, the weather, the people, the country, the company but what I really didn’t like was my massive crash in practice. A step up kicked my back wheel and I went straight over the bars. During the flight I thought… “no hands -just try to roll over the shoulder somehow”. Arms and hand injuries normally take so long so I landed on my shoulder head and back. The head was okay the shoulder, and hips just scratched but the back was totally bruised and I broke a rip or maybe two it isn’t sure. So painkillers turned into my best friends and luckily Margot, our physiotherapist with the angel hands – she kept me on track. During the night I suffered but in the morning it was “okay”. So I decided to try it and it worked. In the pits it hurt, sitting in the car it hurt, walking to the chairlift it hurt, on the chairlift it hurt, pushing the bike up the start hill it hurt, in my training runs it hurt, but BAMM in the moment I pedalled out the start hut in my race run it stopped hurting. I think I can mentally erase the pain when it comes to the point I have to race. Good for me. At the end I placed 5th and was 4 seconds faster than in my qualification run. My team college Simone finished 4th and missed just by few seconds the medal. But in total we were very happy about our race runs. In the men class a local Poland guy won and in the women class a French fast girl.
After the European champs, I drove with Hannes Slavik to the Eurobike to meet our sponsors and checking out their new stuff. It went well for both of us. |
