Dainese's Joanna Petterson gets Top 10 at UCI World Cup in South Africa

Here's Joanna's report on the first round of the UCI Mountain-bike World Cup in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.

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2009 Pietermaritzburg, RSA World Cup Report

The World Cup season kicked off in a country I haven’t had a chance to visit since I left when I was 13. Despite the fact we left such a long time ago I can still proudly represent South Africa while competing world wide. I spent a few weeks prior to the event visiting family and it was a bit of an emotional roller coaster but part of me felt very much at home. Kauai is my home but SA still has a part of me. Something that I can’t really explain but I am sure you are all familiar with.

So, onto the most important part for you all, the story about racing.

The 4-cross track was a great effort on the part of the builders, longest in history but also a bit stretched out. It was a good track with just a little too much space in between the features of it. It had a few good sized jumps that I was able to enjoy before qualifying and unfortunately between practice and the start of my qualifying run I made a few changes and ended up being 1/10 of a second off the 8^th position and was cut. There was a great group of girls in attendance though, so riding with them was really my benefit from the weekend. And not making the final eight just gave me little more energy for the long pedal in Sunday mornings DH.

Being a town with no snow, therefore no ski lifts and therefore a truck uplift for Downhill this had to be one of the most odd experiences for all of us. We loaded into moving trucks, sat on bubble wrapped hay bails strapped to the walls and got driven to the start of the DH. The truck meandered through the streets, drove onto the freeway for about 3 kilometers filling our air space with noxious exhaust and then proceeded to exit and drive through some more neighborhoods, past some farms and through the cane fields lining the top of the hills. We got dropped off and rode down the hill a bit to the start line. The track consisted of a steep rock section at the top and then gradually made its way through the beautiful eucalyptus forest to the base of the hill. It had quite a few pedal sections, some good sized jumps and a challenging gap jump that had me off at quite a high speed on my first attempt. But I was just a little bruised and ended up clearing it in my final and making up a few seconds instead of going around. The crowd in South Africa was great! People attended practice and qualifying and cheered all the way down. When I crossed the finish line the crowd was so loud and electrifying. A few people even told me they got goose bumps when I finished. My run was good and clean from top to bottom and I needed a bit more gas in the tank though and finished up with a time of 4:42.48. I gave up the hot seat to Sabrina Jonnier and was thrilled to have gotten there. The day ended with me in 9^th. I am happy about the event and my position and currently stand in 9^th overall in the World Cup Standings.

Thank you to everyone for their efforts at the start of the season, getting me my product and helping to me get to the races. It’s a good season ahead.

Next stop is Belgium from April 29^th-3^rd for the next World Cup 4X race.

DH FINAL RESULTS

1) Tracy Moseley

2)Emmeline Ragot

3)Sabrina Jonnier

4)Fionn Griffiths

5)Claire Buchar

6)Floriane Pugin

7)Melissa Buhl

8)Miriam Nicole

9) Joanna Petterson

10) Emily Siegenthaler