World Championships - Madrid, 2005

Gidday all,

Well - all the hard hours of training were worth it. As many of you know I rode in the aussie team at the World Championships in Madrid last month. And after a great team effort, the aussie girls came away with a bronze medal.

So briefly, here is what happened.

We kicked off our race at 9am, not long after the sun came up. It was already 25C but the wind was still calm. The pace was on right from the start and I thought my lungs were going to explode on lap 1. I listened to Wazza (Australian director) telling us in the radio to float through the corners and relax our breathing - My legs didn't feel like they were doing very much floating!!

The course was technical and narrow in places and it was more undulating than the course profile showed. It was a 126km race consisting of 6 laps of a 21km loop through the heart of Madrid. There were two significant climbs per lap as well as a number of gradual rise that really stung the legs. The initial prediction of a huge bunch sprint certainly didn't happen with many world class riders, not there at the finish.

Each lap was just as fast as the previous one and luckily I had good legs and felt strong at our 41km/hr average speed. On lap 3, I jumped on Maglie LeFloch (France) who tried to head up the road alone. A few riders came with me, but within a minute everything had regrouped. Fellow aussie Olivia Gollan, countered, with a brilliant attack but her 15sec gap was quickly closed.

On lap 4 and after nearly 80km, I had nothing left to give. Racing in her home country, Joanne Somariba (Spain) launched a huge attack at the base of the first climb which strung things out and eventually on the second climb, shelled many riders, including myself.

On lap 5, Sara Carrigan, Kate and Nat Bates took over patrolling the front and covering anything dangerous, while Olivia continued to try some opportunity moves.

At the finish, 23 of the worlds best cyclists were fighting for the World Champion title. Olivia gave her last amount of energy to get Oenone Wood into position. From the final corner, at 600m to go, Oenone used the German train to set herself up for the sprint. Oenone crossed the line 3rd, behind Regina Scheiler (Germany) and Nicole Cooke (Great Britain).

It has been a rewarding but difficult year for me. The sad loss of my friend Amy has made me sit back and think about what is really important in life. Her passion for success was inspirational and I can only hope to emulate her strength and happiness for life.

Now, I am back home and enjoying life in Australia. It is so wonderful to be the same country as Bob and to see my family again. Spending time apart makes the time together, all the more special. I hope to catch up with many of my aussie friends over the coming weeks as I juggle the demands of outstanding tax returns, a month of auditing at KPMG and my training for Commonwealth Games selection.