Wow what an amazing trip I had! I spent a week in Morzine after the Val Di Sole World Cup round before heading to Champery for the Worlds. We had perfect weather for the week in Morzine, nice and sunny. Everyday we rode different tracks around the area, we went all over the mountains to Chatel and Les Gets. There was a super fun track with table tops and big berms over at Les Gets. It was so awesome being able to catch a chairlift or gondola up to ride so many different tracks, I had so much fun riding in Morzine.
After a week at Morzine we headed to Champery to meet up with the rest of the New Zealand team. On Monday World Champs officially kicked off! We walked the track and I was pleased to see that it wasn't as bad as people made it out to be. It turned out to be quite a challenging track to ride because it was very steep with rocks, roots and jumps throughout the track. Downhill practice kicked off on Tuesday and ran through to Saturday. Practice went really well for me and I enjoyed riding this track. The jumps were a good challenge for me to hit, by the end of the week I had done most of them, which I was stoked about. The weather was good for us all week apart from one morning, it rained overnight so the track was slippery and muddy, I had a lot of fun that morning because I love riding in the mud!
By Saturday I had the track completely sorted, I did a number of the jumps, which I was real stoked about! I felt well prepared and ready to race Sunday morning. Then it rained! This changed the conditions of the track immensely, the dust made the track very slick and slippery for the practice runs before the race, I had quite a few off's, slipping on wet rocks and roots. I did manage to do one run riding all the sections so I felt good for the race. Just when I headed up for my race run, it started raining again, it had been clear all morning. Once again this changed the conditions of the tack. My race run went well minus the off's I had, the track was so much more slippery than it was in practice so it took a lot of control to stay on the bike! I was stoked that I managed to ride all the challenging sections and I ended up in 8th place which I am pretty happy with considering it's my first world champs.
This was such an amazing experience and I am so lucky to have had this opportunity. I enjoyed every moment of it.
I want to say a big thank you to all the people who have supported and helped me to achieve my goal of competing at the World Champs. I really appreciate your support.
