After the Supercross World Cup in Denmark, I flew to Austria to meet up with some friends for the Mountain Bike World Cup in Maribor Slovenia, my 1st international 4x race of the season wearing the rainbow stripes :) Although being fastest qualifier, I placed 4th in the 4x final after a big hit from behind out of the 2nd corner just after I hit the lead.

I then flew to Frankfurt, Germany for a European UCI BMX round, 600 riders competed with world cup standards of racing amongst the women. It was very nice to finally have a sunny weekend of racing.

Day 1, I won all of my qualification rounds, 2nd place to Shenaze Reade (GBR) in the semi final and come finals time I had a great start but Shenaze was too strong, controlling the race. I placed 6th with my team mate Lauren Reynolds (AUS) in 8th.

Day 2 I was feeling very determined to be on the podium, in my 3rd qualification round I had some troubles... My rear wheel spun in a hole coming out of the gate throwing me forward onto my handle bars... Trying to hang on swapping from left to right I got thrown off the bike at the bottom of the steep start hill. The crash placed me in last qualifying position for the semi final.

Drawing lane 8, the outside lane I tried to fight my way across the pack to gain track position for the 1st corner but couldn’t quite get there. At this level of racing gate selection is so important and you can’t make one little mistake. My team mates Lauren Reynolds, Rachel Bracken (AUS) and I all ended the day early not qualifying for the finals.

I now head back to Australia for a well earned rest. It is quite out of character for me to have crashes so I think that I have got them out of the way for 2010. I will now prepare for the BMX World Championships in South Africa... CB

• By Allan H