Race Day 4 at Krasna Lipa

So it’s all over.  Day 4 (Stage 5) completed and it wasn’t a bad day at the office.  Another early start but there was no moaning as this meant an earlier finish meaning we get home earlier.  The stage was pretty easy to read to be honest.  The race was well controlled by Australia all along.  They’ve been superb in this race and have set a standard for others to try to follow.

The first 40km’s was going to be a rather dull affair.  Nothing hard enough to break things up and a lots of rolling downhill.  Then the last 60km’s were on familiar loops and climbs the riders all knew.  This really gave Australia 60km’s to defend and that wasn’t something they’d find hard at all.  It went as we thought and was yet another group sprint into the line.  Helen finished 9^th on the stage having been pretty active throughout.  Helen’s team work throughout the race was great, and then with Hanka out of the race she took her opportunities to go for herself.  Several attacks during the last 2 stages didn’t work, but a top 10 result is some consolation.  She also moved up to 17^th on GC.

Overall it’s been a good tour with a lot of real positives to take out of it.  The performance of Penny throughout the tour has been great, showing some real strength and maturity in her racing.  Expect big things in the future from her.   Results were good, 3 top 10’s including a win was about right for how we rode.  Hanka had was awesome in the TT, and with Sarah Storey being added to the line up for Thuringen, I hope we can put in a strong Team Time Trial.

The journey home was grim.  It topped my km’s for the day up to over 1100.  A long day when it includes packing and unpacking twice and a 98km race stage.  It went hassle free and everyone can now have a few steady days as we build towards the next race.  The next race starts here. Cleaning, Servicing, Packing, ordering and ensuring riders are fit and injury free.  It’s certainly a non-stop period for the riders and myself.

So that’s all from me on the Krasna Lipa.  We might be back next year for another try and we’ll see if we can get up there and compete with the Australians.  I’m really pleased with the performance of the ‘young ones’ who are stepping up to the mark and meeting their performance targets.  Now it’s behind us, and it’s just ‘numbers’, so let’s look forward to Thurningen.

Ciao

This entry was posted on Monday, July 11th, 2011 at 9:41 am. It is filed under DS Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.