Madrid World Cup

Next up, Madrid World Cup. I was excited to go to Spain. I have been to almost every other country in Europe but never to Spain. We were also looking forward to good weather. After two and a half weeks in Europe without seeing the sun, we figured we would get some warm weather in Madrid. We were horribly disappointed when we looked up the weather forecast and discovered it would be overcast and rainy the entire time we were there.

Cami flew over to meet up with me in Madrid. She arrived a few hours before me and found her way to the hotel. The timing worked out very well as she and Mickey and Michael Cintas (my riding coach) went into town for a day of sightseeing before I got there.

The competition was the second day after I arrived. It was held at what appeared to be an extremely large private sports club. The venues were close to each other and it was easy to move from one event to the next. Semi-finals were on Friday and had somewhere around 86 men. I advanced fairly easily through my semi-final group, but others were not so lucky. The number one athlete in the world, Victor Horvath of Hungary, failed to advance from my semi-final. Dennis and Sam advanced in their groups, Niul failed to make it up.

In the final it was a down day for me across the board. Still, it was my third final of the year; and my 26th place finish gave me enough points to bump me up to 9th on the World Cup Ranking List. That is the highest I have ever been on the World Cup list.

After the competition, I decided to cancel my trip to Prague for the last World Cup as well as our planned training camp in Spala Poland before Worlds. I was pretty tired and figured it would be better for me to train at home in Colorado and prep for Worlds and the Olympics. Hopefully that gamble will pay off with a good finish at Worlds next month.