Georgia Taylor-Brown will be hoping for better luck when she lines up in her second T100 race on the French Riviera on Saturday.
The British superstar, who has the full set of Olympic medals, was undone by a bad puncture on her T100 debut in London earlier this month.
But chatting to TRI247 ahead of her second place at Supertri Chicago last weekend, she was looking forward to returning to the 100km format and building on plenty of learnings.
‘Up for the challenge’
She told us: “I think the hard part now will be backing this up next weekend with Frejus because I think that’s going to be a quite a hard course. But, yeah, I’m up for the challenge.
“I am really enjoying it. It’s nice to do something different. I didn’t know how it was going to go because I wasn’t sure if I was going to race at all. And then now I’ve bloody signed myself up to every single race out there!
“But I just love racing. And I knew that I was still going to train this year because I do love the training as well. Racing gives me a purpose to train and vice versa.
“I’m doing seven races in the next seven weeks and if I do all the races that I’ve got planned for this year, I think it will be 19 in total! Not just triathlons – cross country, bike races, gravel races.
“So actually this year I’m probably going to race more than ever.”
And that comes in what she’s termed a “year off” thanks to a more relaxed training regime and no specific targets, with a couple of French Grand Prix races to follow London as well as the British Gravel Champs in Dalby Forest.
Excited by second chance
But first comes T100 French Riviera and looking back to London, Georgia said: “I didn’t know how it was going to go. And it was just frustrating. Just a lot of things seemed to happen.
“So now I know how it all works. Whereas London was a bit of a shock and a learning curve and it was more than just the longer distance – things like RaceRanger on the bike and the fact that you can’t just sit at your pace or watts – there are plenty of spikes.
“You can’t just stay at a consistent pace – it seems that the girls go quite hard for the first lap or two to get a good position and then they hold it.
“I got on the bike and I just let everyone pass me and then by that point I’m like sixth or seventh wheel and I have no chance to move up because if I move up, I’ve got to take six or seven girls and I’m like, I don’t have it in me to do that.
“So I kind of learned that but then just as I started to get into things in London, I got my puncture.
“But again, I didn’t get frustrated about that. Those things do happen and it’s annoying, but it is what it is. And so I’m excited to learn from London and take that into Frejus.”
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