Amstel Gold Race

I cant say the preparation for the only pro-tour one day race in The Netherlands has been perfect, it has actually not even been close to good after my crash last week in Paris-Roubaix. The deep wound on my knee has been troubling me a lot and I could only take the final decision I would be good enough to race on Thursday night. I had to ride every day because a wound like that gets very stiff so it needs to move all the time, I even had trouble getting out of the bed in the morning.

Today in the Amstel Gold Race my knee was not too bad, it was definitely sore but it didnt trouble me a lot during the race so I was good to attack from the start. I wanted to try to get in the long breakaway because after a preparation and a sore body I couldnt expect to do a final in this race. I attacked a few times but in the end a group with my teammate Thierry Hupond broke away and I could save my energy in the bunch to maybe try to attack a little further on in the race. It was clear to me very early on in the race that my legs werent overly great so I just tried to hang on as long as I could. I was able to ride in the front until about 50km to the finish. With about 30km to the finish I got dropped from the remaining bunch and finished the race with a small group.

Of course I would have loved to ride a final in Amstel Gold Race but as I wrote before that wasnt to be expected. My body got a big knock last week and it needs a little more time to recover fully from that but Im happy to have finished the race. I didnt suffer this much in training last week to just give up.

I have a small break in my season now and I will most likely return to racing mid-May in the Tour de Picardie. Hopefully I can fly home to Girona very soon, I was meant to fly tomorrow afternoon but because of the ash-cloud I would now be happy to be able to fly on Thursday. I do realize a lot of people are worse off than me and they are stuck in a hotel or even an airport but I cant wait to get home and relax, then start training hard for the next period this season.

Koen