UCI MTB World Cup Pétropolis

I've been looking forward to the first World Cup race of the season in Brazil for a long time. Especially the new venue and for me the first trip to Brazil made the race very special. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to join the experienced Thömus World Cup team, so it was not so bad that our bikes arrived in Brazil one day later. We used this time to get used to the different climate and to visit the track on foot. The photos below show that the new route and the unique surroundings gave us athletes a lot to discover and discuss.

Finally our bikes arrived and we explored the roads around the race site for the first time on Wednesday, due to heavy rainfalls in the past week and some restrictions of the UCI, the course was changed a little bit until Thursday. Too bad! Nevertheless, the course still had enough big jumps and drops that demanded everything from us athletes.

Finally it was here, the first World Cup race of the season. I set myself the goal of finishing in the top 60 for the first time at the Elite World Cup here in Brazil with bib number 107 and to score the first important World Cup points. The race took a long time and the temperatures were draining my energy reserves, but my tactics paid off and I was able to turn up the heat again in the last lap and fight my way up from P60 to P57 with a fast lap. I'm satisfied with this result for the time being and I call it a "step in the right direction", but I have the ambition to drive even further ahead and score more points. I am already looking forward to the first World Cup races in Europe.

I would like to thank again all the people who supported me during this week in Brazil. Many thanks to the Thömus Maxon Team for organising the trip, the Walter MTB Team and Bike Team Solothurn for the support in the Tech Zone and all the riders for the great week. Now I have two weeks off before the first E-XCO World Cup in Monaco on 23th of April.