Montreal World Cup, Montreal

The Montreal World Cup was Team Rona’s most important race for the season.  Rona is a Canadian based hardware store with an emphasis on Do-it-yourself projects.  Rona’s headquarters are based in Quebec and with many of Rona’s senior management on the race course it was the perfect opportunity for us to perform.  I believe we had the added advantage of racing on ‘home turf’ as Rona is a Quebec based women’s team.

It was cold for the race – 16C and very windy.  Mimi, our masseur, rubbed warming gel on our legs and I decided I would be warm enough with a base layer under my jersey and arm warmers.  Our director, André gave us our race briefing with instructions to ride near the front, but not on the front.  He wanted us to go with attacks but not be the aggressors.

Out of all the world cup races, this would be by far the hardest course.  Each lap is 8.3km with a 1.8km climb.  The climb varies in gradient from 10 –15%.  The race distance was 98km which consisted of 12 laps of the course.  I felt good for the first 6 laps, riding near the front and helping Genevieve Jeanson (Rona) stay out of trouble.  On lap 8, the climb took its toll on my legs and I lost contact with the front group.

On the final lap, Erinne Willock (Rona) set a solid tempo for Genevieve up the climb.  Genevieve waited until 300m to go, then put it in the big ring (53 x 16) and gave it everything.  Judith Arndt (Nuremberg) and Olivia Gollan (AIS) tried to hold her wheel but Genevieve powered across the line, winning by several bike lengths.

The finish line was hectic as the media swarmed around her, capturing her ecstatic joy.  She grabbed her Australian Terror, “Cowboy” and smothered him with kisses.  Then she asked the media to stand aside so she could get to her Rona team-mates.  Winning the Montreal world cup in front of a home crowd was a really emotional experience.  For most of us, there were tears of joy and for me, to experience something like this, makes the hard training sessions and other sacrifices all worth it.