Three of our RedTruckers, Campbell, Fiona, and Daniel, at Prep Camp for the Cairo Nations Cup in Egypt.
A few weeks ago, we started Prep for the Nations Cup in Cairo, Egypt. The team had a prep camp in Milton for 10 days prior to flying out to Egypt. It was a bit of an unideal prep camp for the Women’s team, as for the first four days, we only had two members of the team there, as the remainder were still travelling back from the First Nations Cup. Once the team did start riding together, we rode really well together; very steady and consistent, which isn’t always the case. We were still missing one of our teammates who had road commitments, and so wasn’t going to be flying in to Egypt until the night before the race.
We flew to Cairo eight days before racing started so that we could get adjusted to the team hour time difference from Toronto, as well as become familiarized with the track. The track was almost completely outdoor 250m track. There was a roof, but it was so high above the track, that it didn’t really provide any shelter from the wind.
The first couple days on track were spent figuring out the wind, which was fairly strong and gusty each day. It would also switch directions from day to day, so we had to become very adaptable. It was so windy we couldn’t use the double disc equipment we usually do for a Team Pursuit, but rather we had to use a front spoke wheel instead. The girls and I made the mistake of trying double disc, just to see; we ended up being completely blown from the bottom of the track to the top, so 5-spoke it was!
Because we were there a week before the race, we were lucky that we were able to explore some of the sights Egypt had to offer! The whole team and staff went together to see the Pyramids, which were pretty incredible to be able to see in real life. A few of us also went to see the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, which was fascinating to see all the ancient mummies and artifacts of Egypt. On race day, the qualification round was in the evening. The team rode a steady ride, qualifying 5th overall, 2/10 of a second behind Italy.
The next day was First Round, where we were riding against the USA, who qualified 6th. The team again rode a steady ride, beating the USA, and 2.5 seconds faster than the day before.
Overall, the team placed 6th out of 16 teams, gaining Canada points for Olympic Qualification, and bettering the result at the Nations Cup a few weeks prior in Indonesia.
One more Nations Cup for the year coming up in April!