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PAOLA PEZZO (Gary Fisher / SAAB) |
CHECK OUT PAOLA'S RACER PROFILE SHE WAS KIND ENOUGH TO TAKE THE TIME FOR AT MT. SNOW
Hello,
Well I have not been really good these past three days for keeping you up with our life in the village. The two days before the race have been kind of busy, travel to the course, training, travel back to the village.... So today was the race, weather was beautiful as usual since we arrived here. We got to the course pretty early (10:45), set up the pit area and start the warm up.
The crowd was huge I've heard that around 20,000 people attended the race. Our riders had pretty good line up due to their good UCI ranking. The start was super fast, Alison was in the pace right away, but Ruthie and Ann didn't catch the train and entered the first lap in the middle of the field (14-16 place). In the front, Blatter was charging chased by Fullana and Pezzo.
During the first two laps Alison was moving up until reaching the second place when she hit a rock and crashed. Maybe this got her a little bit off the pace and maybe she paid a little bit (the price of a fast start), but anyway she faded a little bit the next laps. Ruthie moved up lap after lap finding her good legs back, and Ann managed to stay around the same position.
Up front Fullana passed Blatter, before being past herself by a very impressive Pezzo... Alison finished her race pretty well and did actually a fast last lap to get 7th place. Ruthie ended up 10th and Ann 16th. Pezzo stayed strong all the way and won followed by Blatter @ 0:27; Fullana @ 0:33; Epifanova; Sydor.
Back tomorrow with the men's race.
Stephane Girard - US National MTB Coach