Another season over

I am at the Hauptbanhof (main train station) in Salzburg, about to get on a train to take mumsie and I to Bratislava and from there we are flying to Croatia tomorrow.

I have been in Salzburg for just under a week...it is a beautiful city and we have been graced with gorgeous weather which is supposed to change tomorrow. The Aussies had a whole hotel to ourselves in Eugendorf, 10km north of the city. We had a couple of days to peruse the course for the World Championships and then settle in and get some good recovery. After being very tired, a little sick and scared that all my form was gone...I started to feel better during the week. My biggest worry was that I didn´t quite have the power left to have a hard race for all 130km....but I had a good training day on Wednesday and so all I could do left was to cross my fingers and pray!

I was feeling positive going into the race, and Oenone was confident that she had the legs for a good result. The Aussie team, for all our strengths and weaknesses is a very loyal and cohesive unit and everyone was prepared to give 100% to try to get Oenone in that pretty rainbow jersey. We awoke to lovely blue skies, had a quite morning and settled in to watch the fast action packed race of the U23 boys. It gave us all some ideas of how the race might pan out for us....but at the end of the day it was quite a different scenario. Race reports can be read on Cyclingnews....Oenone finished 6th...she just didn´t quite have the legs in the sprint after a solid race. I think it was fantastic that she was in that final group of 15...a lot of good bike riders were missing and she did everything tactically right. I had a pretty tough day...I did a lot of work (perhaps some of it unnecessary) in the early stages of the race which I paid for later. I was dropped on the 5th lap of 6th. There was then the dilemma....do I continue to race, my mum is here to watch, it is a world championships...all of these things...but I knew through race radio that Oenone was in a front group of 15 and had a good chance to win...I didn´t want to miss seeing how the last part of the race unfolded. I stopped at the pits on the last lap and sat with my team-mates Helen, sis Kate and Olivia to watch the last nail-biting kilometres....this did involve us all on our feet yelling at the television! I think we had a great team ride...at the end of the day we didn`t finish on the podium but we did all that we could and I think that that makes us winners :)

We are all looking forward to a much needed and deserved holiday and then to building for next year. I think the Aussie team can all take a step up and be something to fear in the next few years....I look forward to that.

The train is about to leave...I hope to be able to write and send some photos from Croatia.