World Championship Time Trial
September 21, 2005
Madrid, Spain
Report by Christine Thorburn

Well, today was the 22km individual TT in Madrid Spain. Felicia and I competed for Canada and the US, respectively. I was hoping to finally get a medal after being 4th in the Olympics and 7th at the World Championships last fall. Felicia was competing at the international TT level for the first time. Although I had not been prepared for TT'ing early in the season, I spent most of August trying to prepare for this day.

The course was quite rolling in the first 1/3 and then a gradual downhill and flat the 2nd 1/3 and a short but fairly steep climb before a fast somewhat technical descent to the finish. I feel I went out a bit too conservatively the first part (perhaps still had bad thoughts about how I blew up at altitude at nationals). I actually felt pretty good but came up short of my goals by finishing 8th in 30:04. US teammates had good rides with Kristin Armstrong grabbing the bronze in 29:30 and Amber Neben at 5th in 29:48. Karin Thurig (Switzerland) defended her world title in 28:51 and Joane Somarriba (Spain’s 2003 World Champ) captured the silver medal in 28:57.

Felicia was a bit frazzled at the start and said she did not feel good all day. She finished just over 32 minutes. She learned a lot from this first experience, however.

Friday we will get to preview the 21km loop through much of downtown Madrid that we will do 6 times on Saturday for the road race. Katheryn Curi will join me on the US team of 7 women and Erinne Willock will join Felicia on the Canadian 6 woman team.

Wish us well!

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