I guess it’s about time for an update from the B Tour Europe trip. I got back into Canada the other day from doing two weekends of racing in Switzerland and Italy. The first weekend was the Swiss Champs in Bex, and turns out, as soon as I got to Europe I caught some sort of cold or something . So that put a damper on the first weekend of races. Neither of the them(15km skate and 20km pursuit) went very well at all, which was rather disappointing.
Trying to put the results from the previous weekend’s racing behind me, we moved on to Forni di Sopra, Italy for two more races, which were part of the OPA cup circuit. I managed to recover somewhat from the cold I caught in Switzerland, but still wasn’t feeling 100%. The first race in Forni was a skate sprint. I still don’t really know why, but my races was again less than ideal. I felt like I hadn’t raced in months and my body wasn’t in good race shape at all. But there was still one race left, a 15km classic. During the 15km classic I actually felt pretty decent, I was climbing the hills well and recovering quickly on the downhills…but my skis seemed to be the limiting factor. The conditions were quite different from what we usually see in Canada, it was about +5 and raining. The wax techs didn’t quite have all the right gear to work with to make our skis fast in those conditions. Plus I was racing on a brand new pair of skis, which didn’t have any structure at all, which didn’t help matters.
So all in all, the B Tour was a disappointing and frustrating trip for me race wise. I wasn’t able to have even one half good race. But on the other hand the races I did in Switzerland were probably the most enjoyable races I’ve ever done. They know how to put a race on over there in Bex. So many people came out to the race to watch and cheer and the vib and atmosphere of the races was awesome, its just too bad I was racing so slow!
So now I’m back in Quebec for a couple more days before I head over to Halifax to represent the Yukon at the Canada Winter Games. So hopefully between now and then I’m able to get back on track and start racing fast!
Here are a couple pictures from the races in Europe:
(L-R) Etienne Richard, Raph Couturier and I during a beautiful ski in Cortina, Italy
The whole B-Tour CNEPH team. I'm third from left, in blue and red.
Me during the classic leg of the 20km pursuit in Bex, Switzerland.
(L-R) Coach Godefroy Bilodeau, Raph Couturier, Etienne Richard and I.
1 comment:
Bummer dude.
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