Tour of Chongming Island '09

Three days into my adventure around the world and counting. My trip to China with the MB Cycling Team managed by Marcel Bengston to compete in the Tour of Chongming Island (a tour consisting of three flat road stages and one criterium) started off a little shaky. With half the team almost missing the flight to Shanghai due to their flight being delayed by an hour coming from Brisbane, and things just seemed to keep going wrong. As lucky as they were in actually making the flight to Shanghai their luggage wasn't as fortunate.

When we arrived in Shanghai we found numerous wheels, bikes and clothing bags missing in action. Two and half hours later and an interesting excursion to the airport food hall in which the team attempted to find food which even half resembled what we thought safe to eat, the luggage finally arrived and we were on our way to Chongming Island. As simple as this may sound it could not have been more difficult. As the name suggests we were racing on an Island, a simple two hour drive (when the bus driver gets lost), and one hour ferry trip from the air port. A near deadly bus trip, a missed ferry and a fogging in later we eventually arrived in Chongming the next day, only 12 hours after our expected arrival time. The New Zealand team who had been on the same plane as us were a little perplexed as to how we managed to turn up at the accomodation almost half a day after them.

Despite this somewhat questionable start to out trip Bridie O'Donell got the MB team off to a great start with a win in the UCI 1.1 time trial, winning by over a minute (this event is not part of the actual Tour). Amber Halliday, the only other MB girl to race the time trial finished a credible 6th.

Heading into the first stage of the Tour we all knew we had something to prove. We'd already shown our team had strength with Bridie and Ambers performances in the time trial the day before. Marcel, the eternal optimist, was certain we could take out the stage. The race was to be 16 laps of 4.9km dead flat circuit around the streets of Chongming. Each member of the team was given a specific job, today mine was to conserve energy and my legs for the final sprint and protect Tess' wheel in the intermediate sprints, of which there were three.

The team got off to an awesome start, with all the girls showing that the presence of three UCI Pro Teams did not intimidate them. Tess showed her track legs were in full spin with a 3rd in the second intermediate sprint, earning her a time bonus which placed her in 8th overall at the end of the stage. With 7 laps to go, under the instruction of Marcel, all the girls moved to the front to mix up the pace and test the quality of the field. With a strong cross wind the girls drove it in the gutter as I sat back and watched the bunch thin down to single file. From then on the pace never really eased off. The Nurnberger team were very aggressive and the girls did a fantastic job of covering their attacks.Coming into the final lap all the girls were once again on the front in control.

With 2km to go the Chinese pace line began to creep up the sides. The Chinese clearly had something to prove on their home turf. The pace was incredible and as the bunch wove around the last corners of the race I made the decision to jump onto the wheel of Selle Italia Ghezzi rider, Ange Bagdonaviciute (I'd been tipped off by an Italian friend that she was one to watch).

Coming into the last corner which was a sweeping left hander 600m from the line I was third wheel, tucked in nicely behind a Nurnberger girl and Bagdonaviciute. There was a strong head wind in in the finish straight so I knew I couldn't open up the sprint too early. With about 150ms to go as I saw two Chinese creeping up on my left hand I hit the gas and was lucky enough to hold off Lorena Foresi from Selle Italia and Zhao Na from Giant Pro Cycling Team.

It was great to be able to cap off the race with a win after the girls had done such a fantastic job in delivering me to the final kilometres protected and fresh.I head into tomorrow's 79.8km road race with the sprinters green jersey and in 2nd place on General Classification, three seconds down on Zhao Na as I didn't contest the intermediate sprints.

Stay posted for the next instalment!