European Tour

Since I arrived back home from Taiwan 2 days ago, I made a “quick” check in at hospital to be treated for food poisoning and then left for Europe for races within 2 weeks.

The first race was the European cup in Holten. I was still feeling a bit sick form the food poisoning that I got in Taiwan, but my spirit was high and I hoped for the best. The day before the race I trained a bit of 3 disciplines – wasn’t on top, but ok. On race day the sky was blue and the water was warm, it was perfect for the race. I started the swim pretty good until the first buoy, but then I was kicked, smacked and just beaten around. This lap was disappointing as I saw a group just about 30m in front of me. On the 2^nd lap I felt a lot better and started to catch them. In the end they were about 10m ahead of me. I sprinted through transition and was on my bike head down and smashing myself to get to the group with a few other athletes. This lasted about 3km until my body said “okay it’s enough - time to stop”. I was sick again and obviously not 100% recovered from the food poisoning. I was so disappointed after being forced to stop, but still had the World Cup in Tiszaujvaros to look forward to.

In Tiszi I felt much better and ready to rock and roll. I thought this was going to be a good race; it consisted of 3 heats and the final the following day.  I was placed in the 3^rd heat. The heats were taking place on Saturday and the final was scheduled for Sunday. It was sure to be very hard racing, because it was a World Cup and the quality of athletes were really good.

The swim consisted of 3 laps of 250m which was tough, 11 corners in the swim, that meant a lot fighting was going to happen. I started next to a “giant”, and I just hoped – please, please don’t dive onto me during the start. Unfortunately that just happened!! I decided to give it my all and swam like never before. Me and a few other athletes just missed the pack and was cycling hard to catch them, but disaster struck again - I got a puncture at about 5km in the cycle. I couldn’t believe it, so much bad luck in 2012?!

Later I realised that this is all part of the sport and life – just always train hard, believe, head up and never give up.

The tour was absolutely amazing.  Thank you to everyone who made it possible – TSA and LOTTO the Managers. A huge thank you also to my personal sponsors: Futurelife, K-Swiss, ASG, Biogen, Compressport, CycleOps, Tuks and HPC for there support and trust in me.

Then also to my Mom, Dad and brother for always supporting me.

But most of all thank you to God for the talents that he gave me and keeping me safe.

I’m on a short break now  -  so until next time

Cheers