Anneke Beerten: Sea Otter Classic, Monterey USA

The first race was on Saturday, the Dual slalom. The course was almost the same as last year. You had to do 2 timed runs for qualifying, one on the red course and one on the blue course. My run on the blue course went fine but on the red course I had some problems. I still qualified 8. In my first round I was up against Clair bruchard. I won that round and had to race against Sabrina Sonier in the quarter final. Sabrina qualified first and I new see was riding really well. Sabrina knocked me out of the slalom and ended up winning it. I ended up in 6th place.
Sunday morning Downhill.The downhill course was a bit rougher than the year before. They made some north shore drops and more jumps in it. In my first couple of practice runs I was having a hard time getting in to my rhythm. But after two days of training I was getting more confident, and my riding was going better. I had a good final run, I knew I had to paddle hard on this slow course. I ended up in 6th place (less then a second behind the world champ Vanessa Quin). Considering the time of year, I was satisfied with that result.
Sunday afternoon Mountaincross.One more race to go…The Mountaincross course was hard to race on, the dirt was soft and it still was really fast. I qualified in a 6th place. In my first rounds I had no problems and went trough to the semi finals. In the semi final I got pushed to the outside in the first turn and I ended up in 3rd place. I still had to race in the B-final, and that turned out to be an exiting race. In the first corner there was a crash that took me down as well. I was still able to get back on my bike fast and ended up in 7th place.
In the overall ranking I ended up in 5th place. Next week I will have my first World Cup of the Season in Vigo, Spain. The week after I will be in Portugal for the Lisbon Downtown race. I will keep you all updated.
Greetings, Anneke Beerten