A little rant on dopers…
It was with disappointment, but not necessarily shock, that I read about a fellow competitor, Blaza Klemencic, testing positive for EPO. (With improved testing, a sample from 2012 was retested) http://www.afp.com/en/news/klemencic-gets-provisional-ban-international-cycling-union Blaza was the kind of person that would try to start a race with two feet clipped in and holding onto the start rail (both rule violations) when everyone else started with one foot down and both hands on their handle bars. After warnings from officials she would do it again the following week. Some people will cheat to get ahead, but most respect the rules of the game. I choose to believe that mountain biking is 99% clean, although this revelation shook me a little. I have been fortunate to win a lot and to know that when I haven’t won, it was because I wasn’t at my best. It wasn’t that others were impossibly fast, they were just better riders on the day. I made mistakes technically, tactically