O'Donnell aims for nationals double

The 36-year-old won silver in both the women’s road race andtime trial this year and is confident she can go one better.

O’Donnell is supportive of the changes made to the 27km timetrial course, which has been moved from Buninyong to Learmonth largely due tocalendar scheduling.

The Learmonth location was host to the Victorian state roadchampionships for three years, from 2006-2008, and O’Donnell has won therebefore.

“I was originally just going to be focusing on the timetrial but after a weekend of successful racing in Bright and climbing muchbetter than I was last season I’m pretty motivated to do well in the road raceas well,’’ O’Donnell said.

“I think with a couple of VIS riders this season, Jo Hoganand Kendelle Hodges, we’ve got a reasonable team so I’ll have a bit of supportwhereas this year I was riding on my own.”

O’Donnell will kick off her 2011 season at the national roadchampionships before competing in the Rendition Homes-Santos Women’s Cup in Adelaide and the Oceaniaroad titles near Shepparton in March.

The Jan Juc cyclist, who has transferred from the nowdefunct Valdarno team to Top Girls-Fassa Bortolo-Ghezzi for her secondprofessional year, will look to qualify in the time trial for the 2011 roadworld championships in Copenhagen at the Oceania titles.

“That’s the next major domestic goal for me to try and winthe time trial there,’’ she said.

O’Donnell will then travel to Europein time for the spring classics, where she hopes to be competitive at the Tourof Flanders.

“I think going into races like the Tour of Flanders with alittle bit more preparation and perhaps a bit more confidence after this yearmy team will be very supportive of me trying to get a result there,’’ she said.

“I’m not kidding myself that I can win the Tour of Flandersbut I would love to finish that race in the front group.” 

The time trial course at the national titles is flatter thanthe previous undulating circuit at Buninyong but O’Donnell, who trained on thenew course today, denied it would be easier.

“It may look easier on a map but flatter time trials aren’teasier -sometimes it’s harder to get into a rhythm,’’ she said.

“Learmonth is difficult because the roads are a bit dead.There’s often a lot of wind, you might be facing a 5km stretch into a blockhead wind and that often is quite distracting or challenging psychologically.Sometimes the climb can break things up. Obviously, some of the better climbersare going to be disappointed that this race has changed.”