Katy Curd - South Africa WC1

Katy Curd sent over a couple of posts from her last few races, kicking off with the World Cup in SA.

Last weekend saw the first round of the World cup kick off in Pietermaritzburg, south Africa.

I always find the first world cup the worst, as you’ve been training your tits off for six months solid, all working towards this very race. You never know where you or anyone one else is at in terms of fitness or skills all you can do is get your head in to the game and hope all the hard work has paid off.

Unfortunately as Pietermaritzburg isn’t the closest of races for most people it meant the entry list was minimal with only 9 girls entered. The track is one of the longest tracks on the circuit but not massively technical favouring some of the fitter, stronger riders.

For qualification I thought the times would be fairly spread out as just one little dab of the brake or a slight mistake and you lost so much momentum. The times as expected were pretty spread out, with Anneke Beerten coming in first, closely follow by Anita Molcik and I slotted in third with a time that was a second off Anneke’s.

Racing was made interesting with one off camber corner catching everyone out. In the first Heat it was Anneke up against Melissa Buhl and Celine Gros. Anneke had an comfortable lead from start to finish and left Melissa and Celine to battle it out. Melissa was sat in second for the majority of the race but Celine didn’t give up and just managed to take it on the finish line.

The second heat was Anita Molcik, Fionn Griffiths, Lucia Oetjen and myself. Anita shot out the gate into the lead, and I was sat close behind in second but unfortunately Anita got unluckly on the off camber corner and slipped out hitting the deck fairly hard. As she hit the deck I knew that was it, as I tried to squeeze through on the inside Molcik rolled into me taking me out with her leaving Fionn and Lucia to roll past for an easy ride in to the A Final against Anneke and Celine.

Again to no surprise Anneke had a easy lead for final, leading from the start gate and keeping 1st all the way to the finish. Fionn made a impressive move in the first corner, taking the inside line moved from 3rd up to 2nd. Leaving Celine and Lucia battling it out for 3rd and 4th. Lucia put up a good race but Celine managed to put her downhill skills to good use carrying good speed to the line to take 3rd place leaving Lucia to take 4th.

I was pretty disappointed with my result, six months training and travelled half way around the world just to get taken out. Emotions got the better of me at the end of that race but its now on to Fort William where i will prove i can get the results i have been training all winter for.