Alison Sydor of Team Canada and pro racing team, Trek/Volkswagen, took some
time out of her busy schedule in Austria at the MTB Worlds 2002 to email
Pedal Magazine and talk about Team Canada’s gold medal experience. Here are
her comments

“It sure was a most wonderful experience yesterday to be a part of the
World Championship relay team!!! “

“To have a chance to ride the team relay with such a great group of
athletes is a rare privilege and something I was very excited it. The
field for the relay was the largest ever and the Canadian team was very
motivated to repeat last years winning result. To win it’s necessary to
have pretty much four flawless legs of the relay (or would that be 8?). We
decided on the rider order so that we could get a quick start with Ryder
and build a lead with Roland that hopefully max and I could maintain.”
Sydor said, “As it was all of us had good solid efforts and that was the
key to our team victory. Max – riding his 1st Worlds ever – had a small
crash on his lap but otherwise he rode a super composed race and showed
that he is an athlete with real class for the future. I had the anchor leg
which is pretty cool, but there is that added pressure when you are last
to go to not mess up and let down the team after they have all given such
great efforts themselves.”

“I knew before I started some of the most important lap splits and who
would be chasing me for the gold. The french senior man was starting last
so I left the start without that info. But the sound system around the
course was excellent so I knew pretty much the whole race who was chasing
me and where they were,” the former MTB Women’s World Champion continued.

“That meant I could ride a bit tactically. I pushed really hard on the
climbs and kept it conservative and safe on the downhills. After the final
long downhill I knew the race was won for us. I guess I let my guard down a
bit too much because in the last km I hit the ground twice – once missing
my line on the final steep descent and the last time 20m before the
finishline when I was high-5’ing my teamates and something caught my bars
and flipped me to the ground. A tad embarassing but that little glitch was
quickly forgotten as we stood on the podium to collect our gold medals and
rainbow jerseys and then watch the Canadian flag being raised to the
sounds of the national anthem. Very nice!”

Sydor concluded, “This is certainly a significant result for mtn biking in
Canada. To repeat such a victory is not an easy task. We won with 1/2 the
team of last year and 1/2 was different with Max and I riding on this
years team. Such is our depth of xc talent in Canada that we could have
easily fielded a second team that could have also done a great result. “