Astana World Cup

The path to London just seemed to get a little shorter last month when I travelled to Astana for the first World Cup of the 2011/2012 season.  A long off season was rewarded with some great performances for all of the Aussies and as I sit back home in Adelaide and reflect I can happily say that things are on track.

Day one saw Anna and I don the rainbow jersey for the first time this season in the Team Sprint.  Whilst I was nervous I was pretty happy with how I had recovered from the 50hours of travel, despite an issue with my stomach as a result of something I ate.  I spent the remainder of my time in Astana eating plain rice with soy sauce after that! The heats were pretty hotly contested with over 16teams lining up and some fast times posted, and also unusually a lot of re starts due to teams false starting.  Anna and I rode a great time of 33.0 in the heat to qualify in first which saw us line up against the Ukraine team in the final.

Warming up for the Team Sprint

Gary Sutton holding me on the start line.

In the final, as usual, Anna and I knew we had more to bring to the track and we certainly did that with both of us riding marginally faster each to finish in a time only 0.019 of a second off our World Record.  To say that that was a great start to the season is an understatement!  Whilst a World Record would have been lovely it was unexpected that we would ride that fast so early in the season, which is good because we were not preparing to be in good form in Astana.

On the podium!  This was taken of the big screen!  Ukraine 2nd and Germany 3rd.

Here we go...final time!

It was the boys performances on Day one that really lifted the spirit in the sprint team with the team of Shane Perkins, Scott Sunderland and Matthew Glaetzer finishing second behind the in form German team.  Its great to see the boys getting a result they are deserved of and as a group in general we were happy to see some results from a long tough off season.

Day two was the sprint, and my sick stomach was turning to a bit of a stuffy head and I was unsure of how I was going to go today.  I got myself in shape and told myself that if I got to London and got sick would I just give up?  The answer was easy...no way.  I battled with my head and body and pushed through and ended up riding a personal best in the 200m qualifier of 11.173seconds!  Finally I had ridden a PB and finally I was in the 11.1 club!  For the first time in a long time I qualified in quite a good position which meant I got a bit of a better draw in terms of opponents.

In the first round I met Daniella Larreal, and knowing her history as a strong competitor a few years back I wasn't taking her lightly.  I won my race, not quite as comfortably as I would have liked and progressed through to the quarter finals where I met Lithuanian Simona Krupeckaite.  Simona pretty much out schooled me to defeat me in two straight rides, I was slightly despondent after these races as I felt like I had the speed to win but just couldn't put together a strong enough race plan to achieve what I wanted.  I also embarrassingly had a nice little fall when attempting to do a standstill and force Simona to the front.  the race had to be re started and I tried again - successfully this time!  I was happy that I had been able to achieve what I wanted in that phase of the race after having a set back in the first attempt.

The Opening Ceremony, you can appreciate the enormity of the venue in this shot, there are not too many (if any) Velodromes in the world where seating goes around the bends like in Astana!

So I raced in the 5th-8th final where I finished 7th overall.  I seem to always be in that 5th-8th ride off and I hope that some time in the near future to make it through to the top four...that would really make me happy!  Anna donned her rainbow jersey for the first time in the sprint, where I think she was definitely the best rider out there, defeating 10.7 rider Olga Panarina in the semi finals in the fastest times ever ridden in a sprint match.  Anna ended up finishing second but I think she can take some huge confidence from her semi finals performance to know that she really is tactically trumping everyone at the moment.

The last day as usual was the Keirin and I was really feeling not great today.  I had a poor sleep and my body was not happy.  Still I turned up and tried to have a positive mindset.  For me the opportunity to race are so few and far and I don't train because I love to...I train because I love to race, so rain, hail or shine I was going out to race.  With such depth now the Keirin heats are proving to be the most hotly contested rides with only one person progressing through automatically to the second round in each heat.  I won my heat fairly comfortably (but had to do it the hard way by leading out) and spent a good 10min with my head in the bin dry heaving because the lactic was coursing through my body.  I was really happy to win and to have one less ride to race through the day.

My second round ride didn't quite go as I would have liked, I ended up finishing 4th which meant I was into the minor final.  I finished 10th in the minor final, where I just seemed to run out of legs after putting myself in a reasonable position.  I am still learning to have some 'feel' in races as I tend to panic a bit, one I day I will master this and I believe when that day comes I will be quite hard to beat.

So Astana was all over.  I have some fond memories of the trip, one is definitely the best prize I have ever won at a race which was a Sumsung phone.  My brother, Jack, will be lucky enough to get one exactly the same off Santa this year!  The hotel we stayed in was quite literally amazing.  It was 18 floors high (Anna and I were on the penthouse floor as well!), and the elevators were glass so you could see out into the lobby.  It was really frightening at first but like anything I got used to the sick feeling in my stomach every time I looked over the balcony!  I think the highlight of the elevators were when we found out that Mitchell Mulhern got stuck in the lift on the 17th floor...not funny I am sure if it were me but funny because as he said he was 'shitting himself!'  Astana itself surprised me, I am not sure what I was expecting...something like out of Borat, but in fact the country was quite nice, very very cold!  But nice.  I think the capital itself, Astana, will be a really lovely city in 10years time, at the moment it is quite new and still being developed.  It is quite strange to be driving down the street surrounded by these amazing buildings and then all of a sudden it turns to flat wasteland...weird!  The Veoldrome itself is quite spectacular.  I have never seen anything like it.  It seats 15000 people and was a beautiful venue.

Cold?  Heck yes!  View from my hotel room

The team!  L-R  Sarah Kent, Michael Frieburg, Katherine Bates, Matthew Glaetzer, Mitchell Mulhern, Amy Cure, Scott Sunderland, Shane Perkins, Glen O'Shea, Edward Bissaker, Alex Edmondson, Me, Anna Meares, Ashlee Ankudinoff

Snow ball fight?!  You can't hardly tell we are Aussies and don't get to do this often!  Amy Cure with a rather large snow ball!

View from the 18th floor!  Notice the 4elevators on the right and on the left is a big glass window that you can see right out of.

The trip home of another 50hours of travel was daunting for me.  However I kid you not I spent probably 40of those hours sleeping.  I was absolutely wrecked and still feeling ill and every time I got on a plane I was KO'd within 5min of sitting down.  It was the best trip I have ever had because it felt like it went so quickly.  I was lucky enough to get a little bit of rest after the trip, going home to visit my family, after attending a few awards nights.  I will write about those in my next blog.

As for now I am off to training.  I hope everyone is well.  Take care and ride fast! :)

Karls