Gernot Kerschbaumer: "My dream is to win a WOC medal"

Gernot Kerschbaumer has been an usual participant in the Portugal O' Meeting's last editions. This year, he was the winner of the queen stage, something that he didn't expect.

“No, definitely not. Of course I wanted to do my best and try to be as good as possible, but from the start list, I was number 10, so to say, and to win should be a matter of going well and you need to have a good day, so today everything went well.” It was that way that Gernot Kerschbaumer explained the “secret of success”. But just “a good day” is not enough for such a great performance: “Yeah, and of course, in this type of terrain, you have to push as hard as possible from the beginning, but still today it was a little bit trickier than the last days, which I think that was good for me. I always take enough time to understand the map and where the control have to be but, yes, but today everything was very goood”, Gernot says.

In an almost clean race - “just a few small mistakes, maybe, here and there, but nothing too serious” -, the motivation is high, particularly because there's a long way, yet, until the big competitions in the Summer. Gernot admits that “after such a race, and because you have so many great athletes on the start, you feel very motivated and you look forward for the next competitions. Like you said, the season hasn't even started yet, but it definitely motivates you.”

And when the Summer comes... comes the World Championships: “Yes, of course, when you are able to, you always want to improve. At the moment, my best rank ever in the World Championships is the 8th position, so I want to improve and fight for it.” Is it possible to get a medal? “There's still a long way to get to the medals, and also, there's still a long way to the World Championships, but it's a new season and my dream is to win a WOC medal in my career, so we'll see.”

Joaquim Margarido