The China Experience!
I arrived in Jozi on the 3rd and met up with the SA team at the airport. From there we all got introduced to some new faces and got older relationships up to speed.
We all checked our bikes through and made our way to Dubai for the first leg of our journey. Dubai was a 3 hour stop over and then on to our 7 and a half hour flight to Beijing!
We arrived in Beijing at 10pm and made our way to the hotel via bus. This was an hour and a half drive! We finally got into our rooms at about 4:30am due to a mix up with the booking. We got to our rooms ready for a needed sleep!!
The next day we woke up at 9am trying to acclimatize to the local time zone… EVERYONE was like a walking zombie! Thankfully we quickly got into the swing of things and so jetlag wasn’t too bad.
During the week we cruised around the city looking for some cheap deals in the local markets! The market we found was a 6 story building with every floor being a different product type! Clothes, electronics, sweets, animals!! You name it they had it! We got to visit the local Wal-Mart looking for some food and snacks for between meals. These stores are crazy! They have everything from fruit to fried stuff to vacuum packed animal parts!! Took lots of adapting considering I’m quite a fussy eater!
Once all the SA athletes had arrived we all went down to the race venue to check it out. We raced on the exact course where the 2008 Olympics were held! The venue and route was awesome. Very challenging but well organized and beautiful. It was really cool to race the same route that the Olympians of 2008 did. Just that fact, made me motivated and keen to give it my all. The actual race itself was all based around the reservoir we swam in. The local organizing committee went all out to make us feel safe and to make sure the water and route we raced on were in excellent condition.
Race day:
After watching the u23 men race the day before I realized how real this event was and, after chatting to the guys, how challenging this course was going to be! On Saturday the 10th (race morning) we woke up to gloomy, cold and wet weather! Typical considering the day before and the day after were perfect! By the time we raced (3:15pm) the water temp was 25c and the air temperature was 15c!! To illustrate the temp was the fact that a few of the Elite men (they raced just before us) actually had to pull out due to the cold.
After all the formalities we got out bikes racked and did our warm-ups. We then got introduced to the crowd and made our way to the pontoon. It was finally time to race and the butterflies were flapping!!
The buzzer went and we were off. The swim was a fight from the get go. Before I knew it I was in the middle of it fighting for position. After a couple 100 meters 2 groups started to form. I tucked in nicely with the second group for the rest of the swim. I ended up swimming 20:15. I got out on the tail of the second group. Through transition I got onto my bike right with the girls in the main bunch but couldn’t get my feet into my shoes quick enough! The bunch got a small gap going up the hill and that was that! I eventually linked up with a smaller group of 5 girls who were chasing from behind. I stayed with them until the 4th lap of 6. By then the rain was bucketing down and I had a few close calls coming off the bike. The girls got another small gap on me going down the hill and I had to ride the last 1 and a half laps on my own. The run was good with me catching a couple girls and putting in a decent 40 minute 10k to finish 32nd overall.
All in all I was fairly happy with the race as an u23 elite at world champs. There is big room for improvement but that is something that goes with racing and experience.
On Sunday we watched the elite woman race and then visited the Great Wall of China! It’s big!! We left China on Monday morning at 7:30 am, had a brief stop in Dubai again and then headed on home. I want to say thank you very much to my sponsor’s Mr. Price, Orca, Orbea, Inov-8 and GU. With out all the help and advice this would have been a way more difficult goal to achieve!!
Until next time!
Tayla “Tigz” Glover
Mountain Bikes