One thing I miss more than anything is the waves and the beach while in Europe and to finish my European campaign on the West coast shores of La Baulle for the final of the French Grand Prix was a breath of fresh air.

take me to the water;)

With a true team with real spirit, that has been created and helped with the guidance and mentoring of Jerome Bauchet in which we have developed a true friendship to construct a French Grand Prix over the course of the last five seasons of which now consists of now three strong kiwis, James Elvery and current 2010 silver medallist U23 Elite World Champion Ryan Sissons.

Yohann Vincent 2008 elite national champion is our final athlete to make us five strong, our only French influence in which we see a true climb of a team that has truly become united with two podium finishes in the French GP scene.

First in Paris we came through with a third place finish, closely followed and backed up with a second place finish in Tours a mere month and a half later.

All members of the team showed to me some true courage and heart to not compromise results with a long and arduous season which for us three strong kiwis began back in the middle of February.

My next step for 2011 is to keep this team together, which is under serious compromise from the big money teams after witnessing what our small club achieved this season.

sprint finish at La Baulle, me suffering from three attempted breakaways on bikerace to the front

Our 4^th place finish in the weekend in La Baulle was a disappointing end to our rise, but when the big money teams can afford to bring in the big names in fear of us surpassing their campaigns, it makes it very hard for our small team of consistant usual culprits to run into a pack of top ten ITU world ranked athletes.

Clarky and Uncle jEjo sporting the famous Montlucon colors at La Baulle prizegiving

The Swim/biking machines and repetitive the infamous Beauvais club was the answer for Satrouville and Beauvais in the weekend.

Letting Sylvain Sudrie and Stephane Poulet pull through the tapped out speed addicts Beulabre, Raphael and our kiwi force Gemmell, again was the answer to levelling the field to racing for top 10 to 15 places in the finish.

A huge improvement for a small club though after a season end finish of tenth last year, we truly raised some eyebrows with what a small club with a big heart and spirit to fight for domination can do if unity prevails over financial incentives;)

A mixed bag of feelings ending my European season, I achieved my goal of becoming number two ranked athlete as a consolation prize to Docherty being over trained and Kris Gemmell again being cursed in a key race of the season, crashing his bike on the half way mark in Budapest, in another terribly constructed ITU nightmare of a bike course.

So on the whole many ups and downs to a very mixed bag season the goal was to surpass the infamous Kris Gemmell in ITU rankings, in order to set myself up in time for London Olympic selection, to see myself pass him in international ITU WCS as a conolation prize for him crashing on the bike in Budapest was not good enough for my 2010 season.

I needed at least two top ten finishes in the ITU WCS this year and two times I just fell seconds short, twenty seconds short to be specific after my breakaway in London and only 15seconds shy in the WCS Grand Finale due to a time penalty in Budapest.

Yes I have stepped up, but the swimming is still a serious gap from me to the front, I have made the necessary steps to move forward in the pool but now I must transfer all this work to open water. Off season will consist of some serious mileage in the pool and some early morning 5am wake up calls with the famous Aquablades swim squad through the course of November, followed on with some much needed work in December with Rolly in Christchurch.

May 2011 be my season and a huge thank you to all those whom continue to send me their words of wisdom before and after all the races I put myself into 2010, its been a great walk this year and I hope to finish off 2010 with some heke meke results in LA, Dallas and hopefully a season win in HKG to finish 2010 on a high.

Kia Kaha Kiwiana

Sparky