Who would have thought that after 7 stages of hard racing at the Holland Ladies Tour the overall winner would be decided by just 5 seconds?!  I suppose the flat nature of the racing in Holland is more conducive to small time gaps, much different than say the racing in France or Italy where the mountains might naturally separate the main contenders by minutes, but sometimes the elements in Holland, such as wind and rain, can do serious damage.  Certainly there were a few times this past week when we thought we might have just blown it by letting certain riders or breaks get away, but by keeping our cool and rallying together we kept the gaps under control and the overall win insight for Kristin.  However, that’s not to say that Kristin didn’t have her work cut out for her.  Kristin was in a decent, although not ideal, position to bring home the win if she could produce a stellar ITT in the final, nail-biting stage that would determine the overall tour winner.  Going into the ITT Kristin was sitting 12th overall, almost a minute down on Marianne Vos and 39 sec behind Judith Arndt.  Handling the pressure with the poise and focus of a World Champion, Kristin showed everyone exactly why she wears the rainbow stripes as she demolished the field and put herself onto the top step - numero uno - by a mere 5 seconds!  We were elated, the crowd was stoked, and even our hotel manager was there at the awards ceremony to whoop and holler with us.

Now I am back where it all began 1 month ago - France.  I think that’s right anyway.  It’s hard to keep track of the countries and languages after awhile.  When I’m in France I want to speak Italian and when I am in Holland I want to speak French and in Italy I wan to speak Dutch…or some combination of all 3.  Not that I actually “speak” any of those languagues but one does begin to pick up a few words here and there to help get by, which is confusing enough.  The good news is that I am going home a week early - my legs are tired, meaning I would be no help at the next tour - and my off season has officially begun! 

Oh, check out Kat Carroll’s blog, katcarroll.blogspot.com, to see what racing in Holland is all about.

-MM