Sofia Gomez Villafañe received her first race of the season final Saturday, making her two-for-two in appearances on the Belgian Waffle Experience (BWR) Arizona. It units the stage for her so as to add one other off-road collection to a packed schedule, the place she will likely be among the many 60-rider subject on the Life Time Grand Prix once more.
However the darling of filth got here into the 2024 season with some query marks. Would she decide to the seven-race collection once more with Life Time, or simply concentrate on particular person races? Might she match within the BWR Tripel Crown of Gravel? Would the Olympic Video games be a purpose or different mountain bike occasions?
“I truly wasn’t gonna apply for 2024 [Life Time series]. Then I began engaged on my calendar and I figured I am gonna be doing 4 of these occasions anyway, what’s including another to possibly attempt to get some prize cash? I’ll see how Sea Otter, then Unbound and Crusher go, and clearly, Leadville as a result of these have been those I knew I used to be going to do anyway,” she advised Cyclingnews.
“Am I nonetheless gonna present up, put together to win these races? You guess. That is gonna be my purpose. I feel I would simply focus extra on particular person outcomes somewhat than the general. Yeah, I am nonetheless doing Grand Prix. However I am actually stunned that I am again.”
Villafañe received a trio of races within the first half of the Grand Prix final yr, together with Fuego XL at Sea Otter Traditional and set a ladies’s course document at Crusher within the Tushar. She completed second at Unbound Gravel 200 behind Germany’s Carolin Schiff, who was not a part of the collection. She then locked in her total title with a third-place end at Chequamegon MTB.
She expects so as to add US Marathon Mountain Bike Nationals in West Virginia to her summer time schedule, as it’s a precedence for her sponsor Specialised. She admitted that this yr she could concentrate on competing at UCI Marathon World Championships somewhat than UCI Gravel World Championships.
“I break my season up into three – the construct to Cape Epic, then Unbound after which after I’m performed I form of resolve the second half of the season.
“So I will likely be doing BWR in California for the primary time. I’m excited. I really feel bizarre that I have never performed that race but. I actually need to go for the ‘Tripel’ Crown,” Villafañe advised Cyclingnews earlier than heading north from her winter coaching base in Tucson, Arizona to Cave Creek, Arizona for the opening BWR race on a brand new course she stated “delivered among the rowdiest racing I’ve skilled in a very long time”.
New for 2024, the Belgian Waffle Experience organisers reshuffled their calendar to put occasions in Arizona, Utah and California right into a seven-week timeframe for an omnium-format professional collection, with a $40,000 whole prize purse. Of that whole, $25,500 will likely be cut up evenly among the many high 5 professional males and high 5 professional ladies within the collection. It might be robust for Villafañe to do the triple.
“I’m heading again to Cape Epic. It’s a little bit of a decent flip round,” she stated of becoming the 128-mile BWR Utah on April 6 into her US programme after competing on the South African mountain bike endurance race.
“I will simply need to see how I am doing after Cape Epic. However I actually respect the coaching hundreds that Cape Epic leaves me with and I actually need to verify I can get well from that to have the ability to be going properly once more. So I simply form of play it by ear and we’ll see if I make the journey to Utah or to not contend for the Tripel Crown.”
This time Villafañe will associate with Samara Sheppard –a multi-time mountain bike champion of New Zealand and likewise a Life Time collection challenger in 2024 – for the Toyota-Specialised-NinetyOne workforce to attempt reclaim the Cape Epic title she received with Haley Batten two years in the past. This yr’s twentieth version of the MTB stage race is March 17-24.
“Samara was advised to me by Katerina Nash [her 2023 partner] this fall when she was asking me who I used to be going to return to Absa Cape Epic with in 2024,” Villafañe stated. “We each have our backgrounds in XCO and have transitioned to extra marathon distance occasions over the previous years so I feel we will likely be match up for this yr’s Absa Cape Epic.”
It’s her fourth journey to South Africa for the eight-day MTB stage race protecting 435 miles (700km) and 52,500 ft (16,000m) of elevation acquire for Villafañe, who stated she has “plenty of love” for the occasion.
“It’s only a huge race. There’s a number of facets, just like the workforce side. It is actually cool to need to work with someone and work out collectively the right way to be the strongest workforce on the market, with communication, diet, and setting egos apart for the larger good. It is all the time a very enjoyable problem,” she stated.
“For me, it additionally serves as a very good coaching week, truly. The coaching stimulus that I get from Cape Epic, I can not actually replicate at residence. It is eight days the place I get up, my breakfast is finished, go trip my bike actually onerous, come again, lunch is served, I get a therapeutic massage, a bathe, hang around, then dinner is served and I am going to mattress. I deal with it as a coaching camp. So for me, it is such a vital constructing block inside my base.”
With twin citizenship in Argentina, the place she was born, and within the USA, the place she has lived since she was a young person, Villafañe competed for Argentina on the Tokyo Olympic Video games in XCO. Villafañe didn’t compete on the continental championships in Santiago, Chile final fall and missed the hunt for qualification factors for the Paris Olympic Video games. Nonetheless, she was not deflated, it simply made planning for 2024 simpler.
“I made a decision to not pursue an Olympic qualification for Paris, attributable to my nation’s choice standards,” she advised organisers of Cape Epic. “I’m not attempting to stability out an XCO and endurance schedule. For me, the Absa Cape Epic has all the time served as this superb coaching stimulus that will get me in actually fine condition for the spring and early summer time races.”
Earlier than she switches to flat handlebars for one more Cape Epic, Villafañe and associate Keegan Swenson will attempt a brand new race in west Texas, Valley of Tears. The duo will function ambassadors for the occasion and are favourites to win the race with a large prize purse, which is attracting a heavy subject of opponents. The ladies’s open subject contains Emily Newsom and Jenna Rinehart, whereas the lads’s open subject contains Alex Howes, Adam Roberge and Brennan Wertz.
“We’ll be there racing Saturday. It is a actually cool occasion. They’ve a 10am begin time. It is a $20 entry price, and to win is 2500 bucks. For fourth to tenth [places] is $1,000 every as properly. It is a actually, actually beneficiant prize purse. You can also make extra at that race ending tenth than you would profitable BWR Arizona,” she stated, having claimed $750 of the full $3,000 prize purse in Cave Creek final weekend for the win.
Huge wildfires have destroyed over 1.3 million acres throughout the Texas panhandle previously week and are nonetheless burning, however properly to the north of Turkey, Texas the place Valley of Tears will happen. Organisers used social media to verify that the March 9 occasion is unaffected by the fires, and “our ideas and prayers are with our group and fellow neighbors”.
