Castilla y Leon World Cup, Valladolid, Spain

7 May 2006 - 123km

Nicole Cooke (Univega) won the Castilla y Leon World Cup in an uphill sprint, crossing the line ahead of Judith Arndt (T-mobile) and Susanne Ljunskog (Buitenpoort Flexpoint). My team mate, Annette Beutler (Elk Haus) was the best finisher in the Elk Haus team, arriving 18th. She is now ranked 7th in the World Cup Series. I crossed the line 4 minutes after the winner, in 36th place.

Read on to hear about our trip to Spain and how the race was won.

I met my team mate, Isabella Wieser, in Graz, Austria on Wednesday for the first leg of our journey to Spain. We shared the driving in one of the Renault team cars and arrived near Winterthur, Switzerland that evening. This was my first time driving in Europe on the autobahns but it was no problem.

We slept at Patricia’s house, another team mate who is Swiss German. I had a chance to practice my limited German with Patricia’s mother the next morning during breakfast. And yes, it was a very limited conversation but I hope I can speak better German soon. On Thursday, we rode for a few hours to stretch the legs out before packing the team van and driving to the south of France. We slept somewhere near Toulouse that evening and continued our journey to Spain on Friday. We arrived at the race hotel in Valladolid on Friday afternoon, and headed out on the bikes to get the traveling out of the legs.

We had 3 Elk Haus support riders to help our leader, Annette Beutler, in the race. In our pre-race meeting, our director Heribert divided the race into 3 sections of 40km. My job was to protect Annette during the middle section of the race and afterwards, ride near the front, for as long as possible.

It was only 12C but once the race started, I didn’t feel cold. The first 90km of racing was held over a large loop outside the town of Valladolid. Many teams tried to send riders up the road but no-one was able to stay away for long. I was relieved to have good legs again and I felt really strong. I wasn’t in trouble over any of the climbs and found the pace quite manageable. On the final climb before the finishing circuit, Noemi Cantele (Bigla Cycling Team) attacked and put a minute on the field, allowing her teammates Zoulfia Zabirova and Nicole Brandli to sit in and force Univega to chase.

With 37km remaining, the pace was on as we hit the tough finishing circuits. The 6km circuit had 3 climbs and 9 narrow, technical corners. I found it difficult to stay near the front and started to feel fatigued. The field stretched out into a long line and many riders started getting dropped. We had to complete 5 laps of this circuit and with 2 laps to go I completely cramped up in the legs. I tried to pedal with both quads locked in spasms but lost contact with the front group which had dwindled from 140 starters to only 30. I rode to the finish in a small group with my team mate Patricia.

On the final lap, attacks from Edwige Pitel (Bianchi Aliverti Kookai), Priska Doppmann (Univega) and Judith Ardnt (T-mobile) reduced the front group to 10 riders. With 1km to go, Pitel attacked again but Nicole Cooke had the strength to take the win, ahead of Arndt. Annette Beutler was in a chasing group of 14 and tried desperately to bridge the gap to the front group on her own. Completely exhausted and with a slow leak in her rear tyre, she crossed the line in 18th place. After being sick earlier in the week, she did well to secure a top 20 result.

After a 15 hour drive I am now in Switzerland and will spend the next two weeks preparing for the Montreal Tour and World Cup, with Annette.

More news soon.