I've been in Colombia for a few days now and last night we finally managed to dodge the showers and get a skate in after a few failed attempts.The New Zealand team is staying just outside of Guarne (the city to host the Championships) but unfortunately no one apart from the Colombian team has access to the actual worlds track until the 7th of October. So last night we skated at a track in Medellin which is about a 45 minute drive down from Guarne.
At the moment it’s the “rainy season” here which is a pain, ever day it has rained.The annoying thing is it doesn’t just rain once, there are several heavy downpours throughout the day and it seems to rain all through the night as well.Apparently the road circuit is far from finished and all this rain isn’t going to help, so they are on a tight deadline to get it finished.
The sun is shining this morning so hopefully we’ll be able to get another skate in today.
I'm on the way to Guarne, Colombia to prepare for the World Championships. Currently I'm in transit in Miami and will be arriving into Guarne tonight. The World Championships start on the 20th of October and run until the 30th. Click here to view the official website.
I'm at Incheon airport waiting for my flight back to China so I have limited time to write a report before access to blogger is denied.
The marathon in Jeonju started early Sunday morning and there was no humming or haring about wheel choice.The ground was saturated and there was plenty of rain prior to the 8am start.The majority of top skaters choose MPC wheels, I wore a full set of MPC storm surges.The course was pretty simple but the rain definitely made it more of a challenge having to dodge all the white lines and slippery patches.It was just over 10km out to the turn point and then back along the same route to another turn point just before the finish line, we completed this twice.There were a few slight rises and a couple of large corners but the course was predominately long straight stretches.
The biggest rise was about 1.5km into the race.Even though it wasn’t that steep the wet road made it more of a challenge.I done a small attack up the hill and by the top Cecilia was the only one left with me.I led for a few kilometres but Cecilia wasn’t keen to lead so I slowed down and a few Korean skaters caught back up.After a couple of kilometres I started attacking again and once again Cecilia was the only one that could stick.
I continued to lead at a solid pace until a reasonable gap was formed.Every time I pulled out from the lead Cecilia would follow and was unwilling to hit the front.I wanted to attack, but it’s hard to attack someone when they are sitting on you and in your draft. At one stage I nearly crashed on a slippery patch trying to swerve out from the lead, after that I thought it was too risky so close to World’s to play those sort of games.
I settled for the fact that Cecilia wasn’t going to lead and that it was too late to let the pack catch back up after I had led for over 10km.So I stayed in the lead but I didn’t want to settle for 2nd.I tried to disrupt the rhythm as much as I could to wear out Cecilia.I done a few accelerations, changed stride pattern and even put in quite a few cross over steps in on the long straight stretches.Every time we got to a slight rise I would up the pace again.It was hard for me to tell how tired she was due to the fact I couldn’t see her behind me.
After the first lap the wind picked up all of a sudden and the rain started bucketing down.We skated up the steepest rise once again, this was where I attacked the first time and dropped the pack.I started to pick up the pace again and about ¾ of the way up I looked back to see Cecilia dropping off.I looked back after about 800m to see a big gap had formed and then I never looked back.
After the final u-turn and with 9km to go I saw Cecilia heading in the other direction and the gap had grown.Further down the road I saw the main pack and they really didn’t have a chance of catching either of us.After seeing these gaps I decided to throttle off a bit, I got into a steady rhythm and stayed well clear of the white lines.I went on to win and Cecilia came in 2nd.I can’t find official results anywhere so I’m not too sure of the official results.
Photo - Tiger Kim (incheon3040inline)
The men’s race was won by Yann Guyader who went on a solo break away with about 15 km to go.The bunch sprint was won by Peter Michael from X-Tech followed by Kalon Dobbin.
This morning I won the Jeonju Marathon in Korea. It was a wet race and I broke away after about 3km with Cecilia Baena. After 20km Cecilia dropped and I went on to win solo. The mens race was won by Yann Guyader in a solo break and Peter Michael from X-Tech won the bunch sprint to finish 2nd.
Last Sunday the WIC marathon in Chuncheon, Korea was held.With being in Haining the last few weeks it was only a short flight to Korea so that was nice for a change. The temperature was a bit cooler too so it was refreshing not sweating 24/7 like in China.It was my first visit to Chuncheon and I would have loved to stay there longer.The WIC was in conjunction with the World Leisure Games so the city was buzzing.
The course was one lap around lake Chuncheon and it was a really interesting route with a lot of variety.There were a few hills, fast downhill sections, flat, smooth, rough, long straight sections and a lot of right hand turns.After looking at the course the previous day I thought the finish would have suited me a lot better than a long straight line finish.Going into the last corner the road was slightly uphill then a 90 degree right hand corner and about 100m to the finish line.I have no problem crossing the other way so I thought if it came down to a sprint with the right hand corner so close I would have a good chance.
The biggest hill was about 2.5 km into the race, it was a pretty reasonable size and dragged on for about 2km.After seeing the course I decided this would be one place I would try attack.On race day once we got to the hill a lot of the top contenders were sitting on me so I wasn’t able to get a run on like I had hoped for.After about ¼ of the way up and the pace not on I decided I would hit the front.About half way up the hill most of the pack had fallen off and by ¾ of the way up I pulled out for someone else to lead and there was only Giovanna, Nathalie and Cecilia left.No one was keen to take a lead so that indicated to me that they were hurting.I started picking up the pace again and by the top Cecilia had dropped off and there were three of us left.
Heading towards the first hill - Photo - 김천수
My only concern about attacking up that hill was that if we did get a gap a big pack might have been able to easily reel us in down the long downhill drag.Giovanna and myself continued skating down most of the hill to ensure the gap wasn’t closed down easily.Once we got back down to the flatter section I could see Giovanna was starting to tire.We continued to share the leads and I put in a few long ones to ensure the break was going to stick.
Over halfway into the race there was a long section that was rough and slightly uphill which continued onto a bridge that crossed the dam.After leading I moved over and looked behind to see Nathalie struggling to hang on.I waved Giovanna through but she had no gas left either, so I went to the front and kept grinding up the rough road.At the top I glanced back and a big gap had formed.
I led the rest of the way back into town and with about 200m to go gapped Giovanna and went on to cross the line 1st.Nathalie wasn’t caught by the pack and came in for 3rd place.
The main pack came in around 13 minutes later and the sprint was won by Kim Miyong from Korea.
Pack Sprint - Photo - 김천수
Women 41 km Marathon Results
Nicole Begg (X-Tech MPC) NZL 1:09:02
Giovanna Turchiarelli (ALESSI) ITA 1:09:04
Nathalie Barbotin (Powerslide) FRA 1:11:54
Kim Miyong (Korea) KOR 1:22:33
Cecilia Baena (Powerslide) COL 1:22:34
The mens race was won in a break away also. Initially Joey and Yann broke away and then Joey went on to win solo by a few minutes. Peter Michael also skating for X-tech and racing in his first WIC race this season finished 4th.
I'm in Korea at the moment so I can access blogger once again along with all the other blocked sites. I was able to get access in China for about two days until the government caught up with the program I was using. The only problem is the hotel I'm in has ridiculously slow internet that cuts out every few minutes. I will add a race report once I find a better connection.
