Acht van Chaam or Festival Marianne Vos

Big names on the start and a fantastic atmosphere around the whole percouse, for my first race in Holland this year.

A little more than 60 riders took the start of a very fast race right from the begin. I didn’t remember Holland races were so heavy and my daughter Trixy had to pay for our bad position in the last starting line!

The first three laps were just pain and struggle to stay in the wheels as some riders already left gaps and you had to close those. But after Marianne Vos than a group of two more riders with her teammate Sarah Düster and Vera Koedooder had gone, it calmed down a little bit (to fast Belgium’s race speed) and my diesel engine was properly heated, so I had no problem to stay in the first part of the bunch. Nevertheless, when Hanka Kupernagel attacked at one of the intermediate sprints (point-sprints for a nice pink scooter, finally won by Marianne – congratulations!)  followed by Loes Gunnewijk, Linda Ringlever and Annemiek van Vleuten, I was blocked at the other side of the bunch and couldn’t jump.

So I tried to take profit of my rather good technique in turns for positioning myself for the final sprint, finishing 7^th of the bunch and 14^th overall.

Satisfying result and a very, very nice race!

Thanks to the enthusiastic public and congratulations to Marianne for this win but also for all great performances she did this year (Girodonne for example)!

Next race is the Riddeer Ronde in Mastricht August 3^rd 2011