Gould's bronze age: Motivation overpowered sickness at worlds

Published September 13, 2012 04:13PM

After winning a bronze medal at Hadleigh Farm at the London 2012 cross-country Olympics, sickness took Georgia Gould out of training for 10 days before she headed to London to contest the world championship race.

Then she had about 10 days to train before heading back to Europe, where she again took a bronze medal.

She explained being stuck in a purgatory of sickness before heading to Saalfelden, Austria, unable to train but not getting good rest, either. “There wasn’t that much time to work with,” Gould told Singletrack.com.

“I was happy to come home and do some training, so the illness was a little frustrating,” she said.

With minimal recent preparation and minimal rest, Gould could only line up and hope it was enough. “My Olympic result really motivated me,” she said. “When you are having good results, the end-of-season motivation is easier to come by.”

When asked if she had been confident before the race that she could podium in the world championships, Gould responded, “I knew it was possible — especially after the Olympics — but I didn’t have the ideal preparation.

“For sure it was nice to know that my fitness is good, but Worlds was a weird race — I pretty much rode by myself for two-thirds of the race. I couldn’t even see the leaders.

“I felt ‘off’ for a few laps, and by the time I pulled it together I was pretty much just trying to stay in third. Ideally, I would have wanted to race worlds from the front.”

The world championship podium was quite the cherry on top of a huge season for Gould. Now she has two bronze medals to show for the year which, according to her, hang “around my neck. At all times.”

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