Tanja has saved the best for last – she was 24th on the Mercedes-Benz UCI World Cup race in Lenzerheide. This is her best World Cup result of the season and fits nicely with 21st place from the Tokyo Olympic Games. Lenzerheide was also last World Cup race of the season for the Slovenian champ as she will not travel to USA.
Lenzerheide is among the most favorite venues on the circuit as we always get a well-organized races, beautiful landscape and lots of fans. Especially on the XCO day – thanks to the fact that Swiss are a powerhouse in this discipline. There were well over 10 thousand people on the race today.
Tanja has shown proper racing and the final result was well deserved. She started the race around 30th position and was pretty much advancing all the way to the end; in the final meters she passed Olympic champion Jolanda Neff and finished the race in 24th.
“This is my best World Cup result of the season, I can also say that my feelings were great, it really was a good race. I’m happy with the result and my riding, I didn’t do a single mistake, it really was a clean race for me. I’m never great at the start, I’m also a little bit further in the back since I don’t race short track. But today that didn’t bother me, I just did the best I could. I was saving energy in some sections but gave everything I had in the last two laps and finished on the top,” said Tanja after the race.
Tanja was part of a bigger group for a while, alongside riders that were already better in the season, but it was Tanja who took the charge in the last third of the race and started her advancement towards the 25th place. She took another place in the finish bend and came home with 24th – best in the 2021 World Cup season.
Atmosphere was great as well! “It was great, people were supporting all of us. I also heard my name from the crowds. They had some kind of drums on the big climb and that was great for the rhythm. I like it here, the nature is great and the track is great. Well, the track is great when you’re doing good, it’s very technical and physically difficult track,” explained Tanja.
This was also last World Cup race of the season for Tanja. “Together with the team we decided not to go to Snowshoe. I didn’t had motivation as I didn’t do good in the World Cup, but I did turn that to my advantage and do my best for this race. I did everything right on every day of the week and the result is here to confirm this. Season is over for me, but I finished on the high note and with lots of positive things.”
Photos by Grega Stopar
