Photos below:
1 - In a small chase group in the Road Race.
2- After the races hanging out with a native. He rode with me during warmups and was cheering me on during the race.
3- Coming into the final few hundred meters of the road race.
4- World Champion "Oz Sanchez" at Milan's Duomo

Eight months of training and it's over in a flash.
I started training in the middle of winter when the local climbs were closed due to snow. A couple hours of racing in September and the 2009 racing season comes to an end.
When I step back my results at this years World Championships are the exact same as previous years. An 8th in the TT and a 7th in the Road Race. It tells me that the few guys in front of me are hard to beat. Most if not all are paid professional athletes. Cycling in Europe is a well respected and loved sport and the athletes are compensated. I wish that was the same in the States but we are different in our tastes.
I raced well as far as how my legs responded and what I could do with my ability.
A day or two after the mind is still going through senarios and possibilities. In a week or two I'll realized that 8th at the World Championships is O.K. and should be happy with the result.
The road race was very fast. Several countries had teammates who attacked the group trying to hurt the riders. I was in pain I'll admit right now. The Course offered a series of climbs which was what broke me. I'm confident in my climbing but not the repeated surges that the teams were putting in. I ended up in a chase group. Coming to to the final climb I sprinted which cracked a German rider. After a very fast sweeping right turn I drag raced an Englishman to the line.

Next year the World Championships will be held in Cali, Colombia. I raced there in 2007 at the Pan-American Cup. I left Colombia with two medals which is my best result to date. Hopefully I'll find similiar form and better results next year.

thanks for reading.
I'll be posting more photos in the days to come.
Off to Milan to sip on some Vino and celebrate with the Team.

Images

Here's a few images of the past few days.
We had a parade through the local village as part of the opening Ceremonies.
It felt very Italian as the whole village came out to cheer.

The races yielded one U.S. World Championship and a bronze medal.
more photos to come.
So far the U.S. team has done very well so far.
I'll be racing at 1:30 tomorrow local time. a 19 km Time trial.

crossing fingers!