Sprint World Champs, Sweden

I was at home watching the Chelsea football game on TV, when my coach phoned me and asked: “Hey Rudolf, you want to go to Sweden for the Sprint World Champs?” I immediately said yes, why not? So arrangements had to be made very urgently, because I would be flying in 2 days time to Stockholm. Luckily, I already had a current visa so that was one headache out of the way.

I met Wian and Carlyn at the airport and since we all 3 are good friends, travelling was much more fun and exciting.

We arrived at the hotel in Stockholm on Wednesday and was ready to settle in. Unfortunately, the hotel room was a bit small, but Wian and I are good friends so it didn’t bother us too much. That afternoon we went for a swim at the local University, which was quite easy to find. We had a nice swim and ran the afternoon in the rain wich was quite pleasant. Carlyn and I were the “googlers” and Wian was responsible for finding the food shops and restaurants…. – he did a good job with this. The next few days until race day was more or less the same, we trained and explored a bit and it rained like tomorrow was never going to come.

On race day I was anxious, since it was a World Championship race and I was fit, but not race fit. While warming up, I recognised a lot of athletes who took part in the Olympics, and then I realized that I was “nobody” and I was really racing against the top athletes in the world. My nerves were gone, but I was determined to have a good race.

The swim was like a fight all the way, with athletes hitting and kicking everyone around them, but that’s part of the game. I knew that if I was being kicked or hit I was still in the race with the pack. I had a relatively good swim and exited about middle of the field. This gave me a bit of confidence in the race. The cycle route was very hard and technical. On the first lap the athletes accelerated after each turn like in a sprint of the tour de France. I was not prepared for this, and eventually I couldn’t stick with the pack. I rode on my own at my own tempo for half a lap until I caught a few people and we rode together until the end of the race.

During the run leg my legs were shot and I ran just for survival and to finish. In the end I was 55^th, I was very happy with this result, since I was actually training for a 5150 and not a sprint race. I took a lot of positives form the race and gained valuable experience.

Next I will be racing the local BSG series in South Africa which starts at the 30^th of September.

So until next time

Cheers

Rudolf.