Based on a tidal wave of victories in the 2023 off-road season, Sofia Gomez Villafañe took advantage of an ebb in the calendar and made the journey from the West coast of the US to Italy a week ahead of the UCI Gravel World Championships.
No more physical training is needed, as she recapped recently, she had ridden 8,523 miles and climbed “just a little over half a million feet”. Now, mental preparation remained with a scouting mission of the new mixed-terrain course.
“It is a really interesting course and also a huge improvement from last year’s course. 140km seems short, but I think we are in for quite the day on Saturday,” was the feedback provided to Cyclingnews by Villafañe on Tuesday about the Veneto route for the elite women’s race.
“This is a course that is hard to memorize with the constant twists and turns from roads to gravel sectors to alleyways, etc. There are some really steep climbs but a lot of flat roads as well.
“The last 10 miles are pure evil, with the last climb that makes the Albstadt World Cup MTB climbs look like nothing. The lead into the final stretch to the finish line is super twisty and goes from wide to narrow to wide to narrow.”
Last year, Villafañe was part of the early selection of race leaders, which included eventual winner Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (France) and runner-up Sina Frei (Switzerland). However, after the mid-point of the 140km inaugural race, she was one of seven riders disrupted in efforts to attack by a blockade of five of the nine Italian team members. As the lone rider from Argentina, she finished 12th overall.
She has crafted her cycling skills across mountain biking and cyclocross but is now a force on the gravel scene. The Argentinian-born rider grew up in California and now splits time in Utah and Arizona, the arid, high-altitude regions perfect for training and racing. Among the high-profile North American off-road races she has won this season are Unbound Gravel 200, Leadville 100 MTB and SBT GRVL (black course).
Focused on another try at a rainbow jersey, she’s undaunted by the task of a team of ‘one’ and just needs to dial in a game plan.
“Since I ‘am’ the team, I have the freedom to race this race however I want,” Villafañe told Cyclingnews, in good humour and with all seriousness.
That freedom has worked well for her all season, as she rides on the Specialized off-road team with elite men’s gravel competitors Russell Finsterwald and Howard Grotts. She swept four…
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