SportsShoes Blog

Well im now back from the Junior Track Europeans in Pruszkow and it was a very sucessful championships! We went on to win the final of the team pursuit, with both us and the Belgians posting faster times than in qualifying.  It was a really good atmosphere in the track and the crowd were really supportive, plus it was good to get the first gold for the GB team.

I then competed again the next day in the 2000m individual pursuit. I was pretty nervous cos I was warming up and watching the other athletes post times very close to my recently set PB and so probably panicked when it got to my heat.  I was off last against Jolien D’Hoore the World Junior Road Race Champion and 4th placed at the Junior World individual pursuit. I rode the first kilometre very fast and died a million deaths in the closing 2 laps, qualifying second fastest to D’Hoore by 0.2 seconds. This meant I was still in the ride off for gold and silver but it wasn’t the way I wanted to qualify. However, I came back to the final feeling confident and determind to give it everything but to control the first km.  I rode an evenly paced race and took the lead in the last 3 laps.  A strong rider, Jolien then kicked in the last lap but I still managed to win…by 0.4seconds!

This then meant another presentation and a second time listening to the national anthem! (I was glad I’d made the effort to get some nice new Nike trainers from Sports Shoes before I left for Poland to wear on the podium!) I also received another European Champions jersey…see pics!

I was really happy and phoned my family and gym coach then it was back to bed as I had another event in the morning!

For the next days event I was riding up a category in the U23’s 3000m individual pursuit so competing against girls potentially 5 years older, however the aim was to use it for experience.  I finished 13th in a respectable time of 3:50, 2 seconds slower than my PB but it was good to see where the standard was and how much I need to improve when I become an U23.

So all in all, a good trip and I returned hope with 2 gold medals and as Double European Champion!

http://track-pruszkow2008.eu/galerie/pretty_fast-31/1.html pictures from the event

Tags: cycling, european track championships

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 11th, 2008 at 3:13 pm and is filed under Diaries & training blogs, Hannah Mayho. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.