Georgia Gould at Elite Women 2014 USA Cyclocross Nationals. © Steve Anderson
We caught up with Georgia Gould, who made an impressive comeback to ’cross for the year with a fifth place showing at Nationals yesterday. And as it so often happens with Gould, her commentary was so funny that we ended up watching it over and over laughing before being able to transcribe it.
On fifth place… I’m happy with it! I didn’t know what to expect. Actually, I did know what to expect: a really hard-ass race. I got that.
On the start… I wish I could have been up there at the start more. Once the gaps go, you close a gap and you have to recover. But overall I’m happy, it was a solid ride. Actually, I was joking around, I lined up right behind Katie and was like, ‘Katie, have a good start.’ And she’s like, ‘I don’t know, I’m 50-50 these days.’ And then she missed her pedal. I was like, ‘Come on!’ It was funny. But I didn’t want to be too crazy in this first corner. There was some sketchiness in the first straight so I was back in about 20th.
On her strategy… I tried to be patient and move up where I could. There was this one line that I had where I had some awesome passes. I’m not super aggressive so whenever I have sweet passes, I’m like, ‘Awesome pass! Did everybody see that?! Put it in the record!’
On her best section… I love the stairs, the long ones! Every time I was like, ‘Yeah, I rock at this!’ But imagine Ryan [Trebon] out there. He could double step them!
On the battle for fifth… I was battling with Rachael [Lloyd] at the end. I attacked her on the stairs, I knew I could use them to get a little bit of a gap, and then I was like, OK, murder yourself until the end of the lap. And I did.
On taking a break… I didn’t want to bum everybody out, seeing me ride around just one pedal in front of the other.
On racing ’cross… I’ll always race a few races. I love it.
Watch the rest of the (somewhat hilarious) interview here:
For all the best Cyclocross Nationals 2014 coverage, including bike profiles, race reports, results and video interviews, check out our 2014 Cyclocross National Championship Page here.
