Portugal is never flat. Or so I thought, at least, until I came to Almeida. In this region, which sits on a plateau at around 700 metres above sea level on the Spanish border, I was proved wrong. Across all four races, the total accumulated climb came to almost exactly 1,000 metres. On top of that, these were the first international championships for me that took place almost entirely outside forested terrain. Even so, I look back on exciting, demanding races and a few good results.
But let’s take things in order. The week began with the sprint, held in and around the historic little town of Almeida. The town, built within a star-shaped fortress wall, promised exciting and challenging courses. The actual courses turned out to be fairly straightforward, and we only went into the town itself briefly. The complications offered by the various bridges and tunnels around the fortress walls were also used only sparingly. The result was a fast, physical race with small time gaps. I chose a wrong route and, on top of that, made a costly mistake by missing a turning. Each error cost around 40 seconds, and together they dropped me back to 29th place, which is very disappointing for me.
The second day of the Europeans brought the middle distance. This was held in different terrain, a little to the south of the border town of Vilar Formoso. In terrain that was no less flat, the main difficulty lay in correctly judging and executing the options for cutting across. I managed that reasonably well. Physically, though, I never really got going and struggled to find my rhythm in the flat terrain. In a race once again marked by very small time gaps, I rode to 13th place, with which I am relatively satisfied.
The last individual discipline was the mass start. Mostly in the same area as the middle distance the day before, it was again a matter of finding the good routes across and executing them cleanly. My main aim for this race was also to avoid riding on my own wherever possible, because in a flat race like this, with average speeds of up to 30 km/h, a good slipstream is essential. I managed to stick to that plan well and was always riding in a group. Until shortly before the final loop I was still in a group that ended up fighting for the medals. Just before the final loop I deliberately chose a different route, so as not to have to settle things physically. Settled they were, but not in my favour: my route was slower. I just made it to the finish ahead of the chasing group and took 9th place. I’m happy with the result, and yet I do wonder how far it might have taken me had I stayed with my group.
These European Championships concluded with the relay. In the first Swiss team I rode alongside double European champion Celine and diploma winner Noah. I took the second leg for our team and had a day to forget. I started my leg together with Vojtech Ludvik. Early on I picked up a piece of wood in such a way that it lodged in my cassette and left me unable to use my biggest gear. At the first fork, Vojtech had the shortest variant and I had the longest, so I lost contact with him. Shortly afterwards I missed a turning, believed I was on the wrong track, opted for a route across from the wrong position and lost my bearings completely. Together with Rasmus Nordgren of Sweden I tried to recover. Having lost around five minutes, I eventually found my way back into the race, which from then on went reasonably well again. I am extremely disappointed with my performance in the relay. Failing to deliver in this format is three times as bad, because several team-mates go unrewarded for their own good performances. After several years of consistently good and very good relay races on my part, I now have to learn to deal with a performance like this. My team-mates’ consolation helped me a great deal. I very much hope to be back on a relay team soon and to be celebrating together on that occasion.
Next up are two weekends in France, a short competition break, another weekend in France, and soon after that comes my next highlight: the O-Ringen in Gothenburg, Sweden. See you soon!
