The last round of the 2022 World Cup took place in Targovishte (Търговище), which is located in central Bulgaria. Due to the rather sparse offer of travel options from Switzerland, we arrived already on Tuesday. Thus, despite the massive delay of the plane, we were able to arrive relaxed, knowing that we still had enough time before the start of the first competitions.
After two days of preparation on the model maps, the first competition started already on Friday. For the sprint in Kardam, a small village just outside Popovo, I expected a fast race in which you always have to read well ahead to catch the best route. But it turned out to be a rather boring race that offered hardly any challenges, at least map-wise. At least I had no problems with stray dogs, horses or pedestrians, the organization was really good.
It was a fast and physical race, and the lack of uphills didn’t suit me. Without any big mistakes, I only finished 29th, a disappointment for me.
The following day, my favourite discipline, the long distance, was on the agenda. On a plateau that promised a lot of climbing, 37.3km with only 650 metres of altitude difference were to be completed. I expected an exciting race with many long route choices and some passages where you had to cut through the forest. And that’s more or less how it turned out. In a complex network of paths, it was necessary to find the fastest route partly paths which were not too well rideable, with more or less climbing, or sometimes across the forest. I succeeded relatively well at the beginning, I caught up with the Dane who had started 3 minutes ahead of me already at the 5th control. I hit the routes relatively well, and apart from a few small insecurities I didn’t make any mistakes. On a meadow on the way to control 10, my chain suddenly broke out of nowhere (without shifting). I noticed that I didn’t have a chain lock with me, so I had to hope for a nice competitor to help. In the end I found one in team mate Silas, who made it possible for me to resume my race after 5.5 minutes. He chose a suboptimal route right after that, and so I was able to overtake him right back again, despite the 1.5min I still needed to finish fixing the chain. My motivation was a bit dampened after this mishap, but knowing that I wasn’t selected yet for the Mixed Relay, I still tried to finish my race as fast as possible. I was able to complete some good sections, but towards the end the tank got a bit empty and Silas was able to overtake me a second time. In the end, I didn’t make it to the first relay team, which was a huge disappointment for me. The 28th place is also one of the worst placings in a long distance race in a long time for me.
On the last day, I raced the mixed relay in team Switzerland 2 with Lena and Flurin. Lena had a lot of bad luck at the beginning and bent her changer in a fall. With shifting problems she couldn’t ride as fast as she could have and finished the race with a gap of more than 20 minutes. Flurin was able to give everything once again and sent me to the final stretch in 21st place. I started the race with the intention to enjoy it and knowing that this was the last important race of the season. When I crossed Silas in the forest, already after the 1st control, I was quite surprised. He was pushing his bike back, I stopped briefly and asked if he needed help. But his broken frame with a torn derailleur was beyond repair. So I continued and managed to do my race relatively well. On the way to the 5th control, I got confused by a curve that was not so distinctly marked on the map and lost over 2min. Otherwise I finished my race without any mistakes and was able to overtake some teams and finish the race in 15th place (10th nation).