Episode #11

Hello, my name is Daniel Abraham Gebru, reigning Paralympic cycling champion for the Netherlands, but my roots are in Eritrea. Currently, I am mentoring young refugees in the Netherlands and trying to inspire them by showing them how sports can help them integrate in the Netherlands. In addition, I am working hard towards my goal of successfully defending my Olympic title later this year. I am happy to share my experiences, highs and lows with you on the road to Tokyo 2021!

Ok, as I write this from my hotel in Portugal, I still can't quite believe that the rainbow jersey is on the bed next to me....... What a great day yesterday, where everything fell into place and ended with the raising of the flag and the playing of the Dutch national anthem.

I take you back to the final preparations for this fantastic individual time trial: Last Friday we decided to do one last intensive time trial training behind the derny at the indoor track in Amsterdam to simulate one more time the extremely high speeds we expected on the Portuguese car circuit. I had a good feeling about it and the position on the time trial bike seemed to be really optimized. On Saturday and Sunday we did some more low-intensity training and I noticed that my body had already processed the efforts of Friday's training well. With the warm encouragement of the home front and the negative PCR-test in my pocket, it was time to travel to the south of Portugal on Monday, together with the rest of Team NL. Because of the warmth, the excellent facilities and the good food, I immediately felt at ease and I was therefore looking forward to the next day, when the first route reconnaissance for the time trial was on the program.

Ouch...... In the Netherlands we are used to a lot of wind, but here at the coast in the south of Portugal it might even be worse! This combined with the challenging course on the Formula 1 circuit made it a good thing that we opted for an extensive reconnaissance. The plan was to ride with a disc wheel and the super-fast Cadex 4-spoke front wheel during Thursday's race, but after half a lap I already knew that the wind was too extreme for this set-up. The next test with a 2-spoke front wheel went a lot better, even though I still had to be careful on the bike! Due to the challenging course and the changing conditions, we decided to do another extensive analysis of the pretty technical course on Wednesday. The time trial is always about details, but I haven't experienced it as extreme as this. Lots of technical corners and a strong wind from different directions meant that the time trial required a lot more interval effort than usual. As if this didn't cause enough "stress" already, the UCI also decided at the end of the day that team cars would not be allowed to follow the riders. Whereas I normally always have a lot of guidance from the car, now I would have to do it alone....

Raceday! I was feeling good. I was relaxed and I had a lot of energy to bring one of the main goals of the year to a successful conclusion. Bring it on! First, compliments to the Team NL coaching staff during the warm-up. Of course it was hot and it would have an impact on the performance of all participants, but the focus of the team to ensure that I would be at the start line with an optimal core temperature certainly had a positive impact on my performance. Thank you team!!!

And then the time trial itself; downhill at high speed and full speed towards the first corner that can immediately throw a spanner in the works. This corner has to go well, otherwise it will affect the rest of the race. Focused, I steer into the corner and make sure I follow the optimal line (as practiced on Tuesday and Wednesday), so I can keep the speed extremely high. Yes!, it goes perfectly and during the rest of the race I am able to concentrate on dealing with the changing conditions and the wind that often tries to push me out of the ideal line and TT position. With a minimal difference of 3 seconds on the number 2, I manage to win the race and with great pride I can call myself WORLD CHAMPION!!
Now today I try to relax and prepare for the road race tomorrow. As soon as you read this, that race has already been ridden. Hopefully next time I can tell you how I won ;-).

See you soon, Daniel

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