Edit

In both the women's and the men's race the largest fields of the year was gathered. As many as 49 men and 44 women were on the start line. The conditions were difficult. 25 degrees Celsius, sun and strong winds. It looked like if this effected the women more than the men, maybe body weight was an issue in the wind :-) The Challenge race in La Coruna was the last World Championship qualification race for China, Japan and Portugal in the women's race and for China, Japan and Mexico in the men's race. While in the Women's race Portugal's Ines Henriques and Vera Santos already have a GO for Berlin, the fight for the last spot in the Portuguese team were supposed to be between Susana Feitor and Ana Cabechina. Ana didn't even come to La Coruna, so for me it should be clear that Susana get´s the last spot on the Portuguese team. Anything else would be unfair!

After my easy warm up in the morning I felt very strange and very tired. I just wanted to sleep all day. It was good to get ready to get dressed for the race, because then I was getting back into competition mode.

From the start Susana Feitor showed that she was ready to do a good race all though Ana didn't show up for a fare fight for the ticket to Berlin. She took the responsibility and lead the field for 6 km. Then Sabine Krantz (GER) and I took over. We walked at a good pace and the group was big. After a couple of laps under 4.30 pace there was suddenly just Sabine, Kawasaki (JPN) and I left in the lead group. My stomach had been bothering me for a while and around 10 km I was not even sure if I would be able to finish. Sabine was strong and did a very good race. She took the lead and never gave it away. I was just focusing on one lap at a time and I wanted very much to finish. My goal for this season was all the races on the podium, that was my biggest motivation for the last half of the race! At 16km Kawasaki was still together with me, but then I was able to push one lap a little faster and she couldn't follow. I tried to keep the pace up, but from 18 to 19 km I had really bad stomach problems again and I walked a 4.41 lap. Then my only focus was to be able to finish without a "pit stop". I felt pretty sure that the second place was mine. I managed to hold on and finished in 1.30:56, 36 seconds behind Sabine and 17 seconds ahead of Vera Santos who had a strong finish. Kawasaki got problems at the end and finished in 5th place. The first thing I did after the finish was to congratulate Sabine and Heiko Schulze (Sabine´s coach). Then I headed for the toilet, but I was not allowed to go because I had to go to the doping test...... and I was not able to wait for the price ceremony. I had to hurry back to the hotel! I am sorry for that, because it was my last competition in La Coruna. I was really happy with my second place in La Coruna :-)

The men started just before we passed 5k. Erik Tysse (NOR) was in the lead from the beginning. He was the leader of the group and took almost all the responsibility in the wind. Already at 10k it was only Erik, Eder Sanchez (MEX) and Yafei Shu (CHN)left in the lead pack. Eder had to let Erik and Yafei go at 16k. At 17k Erik pushed hard to check out the Chinese, but he stayed behind like a shadow and saved his energy for a strong 700m sprint at the end. He won, 4 seconds ahead of Erik, who walked 1.19:55. Eder walked 1.20:30 and secured his 3rd place! Trond Nymark (NOR) walked season best with 1.24:51, he became 18th.

Results with km times

Photo's

 

2009-06-21