Sofía Gómez Villafañe doesn’t draw back from any hurdles, having earned a spot on the Tokyo Olympic Video games mountain bike group for Argentina after which profitable the insanely intense Cape Epic the subsequent yr with Haley Batten. In her first experience at Unbound Gravel 200 final yr, the longest one-day race of her profession, she received.
The 29-year-old embarked into gravel racing simply two years in the past, profitable in her first outing at Crusher within the Tushar, situated on acquainted excessive desert terrain just a few hundred miles south the place she resides a part of the yr in Heber Metropolis.
However experience 200 miles at Unbound Gravel? That “foolish 200-mile bike race in Kansas” was not even near her radar on the time. Then Villafañe accepted an invite to experience within the inaugural Life Time Grand Prix off-road sequence final yr, and Unbound Gravel 200 was a requirement for rivals. She modified her reference to the occasion as soon as she conquered the muddy version, calling it “monumental”.
“I used to be right here to undoubtedly show some extent. I wished to indicate that mountain bikers can go quick and go lengthy,” Gomez stated on the end line final yr. “I used to be going to be stoked to only to win a Life Time Grand Prix race, however to come back out with the general… it is a true testomony to the laborious work I’ve put in.”
The 2022 girls’s champion blitzed the ladies’s discipline with a nine-minute margin over the 2021 defending champ Lauren De Crescenzo. Within the first 40 miles of the endurance battle throughout Kansas prairie Villafañe rode on the entrance of the race with lots of the elite males, saying “as a result of I had made this heavy hitter choice I used to be set as much as win the most important gravel race on this planet”.
Villafane went on to complete second total within the Life Time Grand Prix sequence, 4 factors behind winner Haley Smith. She stated she’s prepared for a second crack at Unbound Gravel and has embraced gravel in a sport seeing dominance from mountain bike specialists like her and Smith. Actually six of the highest 10 girls in final yr’s Grand Prix are mountain bikers.
“There may be undoubtedly a cut up throughout the MTB group with regards to gravel. Half of the elite discipline is embracing gravel racing and the opposite half are extraordinarily towards it so it has been fascinating to see how athletes have modified their schedules in 2023 to both race extra gravel or decide to not racing any gravel,” Villafañe advised Cyclingnews.
“That being stated, for those who have embraced this new self-discipline, we discover the transition from MTB to gravel a fairly clean one as all now we have actually wanted to do is nail down our fueling methods and enhance the quantity a little bit bit extra with a view to be aggressive.”
Up to now this yr Villafañe has received three occasions – Belgian Waffle Experience Scottsdale, Fuego MTB XL at Sea Otter Basic and Whiskey 50. The Fuego MTB victory put her within the lead of the Grand Prix standings, which this yr incorporates a 70-rider discipline of 35 girls and 35 males. Riders are required to finish 5 of seven occasions within the sequence with Unbound Gravel 200 a required race.
“I’m at the moment planning to attend all of the occasions. We do get to drop two, so we’ll simply should see how the season performs out,” she admitted, noting she had a decreased calendar from what she did final yr, which included UCI cross-country races and extra off-road races earlier than Unbound.
“My decreased schedule isn’t a lot about my Unbound Gravel prep because it’s extra of a centered strategy to my racing calendar. I overextended myself final yr with racing throughout a number of disciplines and I simply ended up not being excited to race close to the tip of the season. This yr I’m racing quite a bit much less and actually trying ahead to being initially line for every of the races I’m scheduled to attend.”
The 29-year-old didn’t win Cape Epic this yr, however used it for spring health and located a last-minute teammate with Katerina Nash, whom she referred to as “a legend”.
“It was such an honor to race the Epic with Katerina Nash. She is such a legend and gave all the things she had day in and time out which is all you possibly can ask of your associate in such race,” Villafañe advised Cyclingnews.
“The one factor she needed to achieve from doing that race was to say that she had achieved it for me. I nonetheless recall Katerina saying that if the race was a real key think about my health and serving to me obtain my 2023 targets that she can be more than pleased to come back undergo with me for eight days in South Africa.”
Whereas the Grand Prix is a objective for the Argentina-US twin citizen, she’d additionally like to enhance on her twelfth place end finally yr’s UCI Gravel World Championships in Italy within the fall. Gravel is her go-to now, and any return to cross nation for the Olympic Video games will occur after Paris.
“I’m focusing on the UCI Gravel World Championships in Italy this yr. I acquired outsmarted final yr and made plenty of tactical errors that ought to haven’t have occurred so I’m trying ahead to getting one other alternative at that race,” she stated.
“I used to be contemplating going to Pan American Championships in Brazil on the finish of April to attempt to qualify Argentina into the Paris 2024 video games however as a result of choice course of on how the Olympic spot can be given out, within the case the nation acquired one, that might be extraordinarily tough for me to pursue with my shift in gravel racing. So I made a decision that I cannot be chasing a spot on the Paris 2024 Olympics.”
