Great day for racing

Or anything really. Jing showed the Midas touch again when it came to the weather, getting her racing finished before a wet and stormy afternoon. Saturday dawned warm and clear and we headed out to the course nice and early to avoid the parking issues we experienced the day before for the time trial at Ostia. We were sharing a tent in the pit area with Greece and Israel, but neither nation showed up so we shared the tent with the Japanese team who spilled over from next door. Jing and I rode a couple of laps of the shortened course, which proved quite different to the description provided on the World Cup website! Instead of one short climb out of the finishing straight, the entire 5km circuit, other than the start/finish straight, was either up or down, combined with sharp corners and dubious surfaces. The most exciting part was a long fast descent at about half way around ending in an almost hairpin bend and straight onto a reasonably steep climb about 400m long. Jing's raced in a combined C2-C3 category with nine starters - seven C2 and two C3. After lap 1, two of the C2s had lost contact. During lap 3 C3 Schindler and C2 Jones attacked together and split the race wide open. A lone Czech C2 remained close but the rest of the field was left to time trial home. Jing produced her best performance of the "Italian Campaign" to finish 5th C2, only 7 minutes off the pace in a 40km race on the most difficult course encountered. With racing over, we took the opportunity on Monday to visit VIlla d'Este in Tivoli, high above Rome, but less than an hour's drive away. The villa and gardens, set on the side of a virtual cliff, we're created by Cardinal Ippolito il d'Este around 1560. The Villa normally features running water and fountains throughout the gardens but due to recent heavy rain, all the water features were turned off. The gardens were still magnificent though. Now we have to come back to reality and pack bikes for the trip home. Ciao for now.