2nd Place for AliciaRose Pastore

Teal Stetson-Lee’s recap of her 47th place World Cup finish;
“It was an epic race, an epic day, and an epic course. I was unbelievably excited about the opportunity to line up with the fastest women in the world in my first world cup mountain bike race ever. The race began with a chaotic start of elbowing, grimacing, grunting and battling through the 200 yard road start area. On the back line I had to attack hard to stay alive. When we got to the first narrow tree section on the course the chaos was far from subsiding, the women’s field had bottle necked and I was forced to get off my bike and scamper through the rocks like a wounded pika. Soon, I moved far enough ahead that I was no longer contained by the struggling pack and managed to push my way into the 40s. The rest of the race was about maintaining my position and surviving the sweat and humidity that was attempting to drown me. I felt strong and felt like power and confidence was emanating with every pedal stroke. I continued to shred the techy, tacky, rooty, rocky descents without too many major catastrophes, occasionally getting stuck behind China, who as it happens, has absolutely no technical skills. I was considering my race a great success when I caught and passed a few of my major competitors from the mountain states cup series and was preparing myself for a strong finish on the fourth lap assuming I would get pulled before I could start the final lap because everyone who is more than 80% behind the leader gets pulled. Coming through the start finish area after a final push I realized they weren’t waving me off the course. That was when it dawned on me that I was the last lucky competitor to actually get to finish the whole race. As I rolled through the finish line headed into my last lap, I could hear the crowd chanting USA! USA! I was completely blown, and fried after thinking the fourth lap was my last time up the slimy hill. Luckily, Elke was there to save the day with a bottle full of coca-cola. I grabbed my feed, took a Clif shot of 100mg of caffeine, double expresso, washed it down with coca-cola and charged up the hill one last epic time!!! The last lap went smoothly, I held it together and then sprinted hard through the finish area almost catching Kelly Emmet who finished 1 second and three bike lengths in front of me as I rolled through taking 47th. I was the first finisher in the national USA kit and the last one to complete all five laps. It was a great introduction to the world cup racing scene, hopefully an experience to be repeated many more times!!!”
-Teal