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 include 2022 Unbound Gravel 200, 2023 Leadville 100 MTB and 2023 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 top points in four of the five races in which she competed in the Life Time Grand Prix, and has locked up the elite women’s title with only having to start the finale at Big Sugar Gravel.
Her victory at Leadville Trail 100 MTB in early August, part of the Grand Prix, was a major milestone and summed up her moxie. Just a year in her first start, she was sick during the high-elevation contest and struggling to make the major ascent of the Columbine climb. Her teammate Finsterwald was passing on the descent but running with a broken rear wheel. So she gave him her rear wheel, she was a DNF, and he finished top 10.
“Leadville kind of lit a fire in my butt last year, setting 2023 goals. I said I want to be a better climber. I always like to beat or out-do last year’s performance. And since I DNF’d last year, the bar is set so low that I just really want to finish,” Villafañe said on a recent YouTube video created by Specialized that chronicled the team’s performances at Leadville 100, as well as SBT GRVL.
This year at Leadville she created a gap on the Columbine climb ahead of Alexis Skarda (USA) and rode away for a solo victory.
“I was a bit lonely, and with three miles to go, Ruth Winder almost caught me. I managed to put in a little bit of an effort and salvage that first place. I would have been heartbroken if I had lost Leadville in the last three miles.”
Villafañe went on a week later to win SBT GRVL on the 141-mile black course, and distancing Tiffany Cromwell (Australia) by more than a minute and Skarda by almost nine minutes.
She noted in the recently-released 'Off-Road Bicycle Racers' video by her team she's had a big year: “I have trained for 551 hours, I have ridden 8,523 miles, I have climbed just a little over half a million feet. Yeah, I guess I have been training a lot.”
She’ll face Cromwell, Skarda and a host of top Europeans on Saturday for the rainbow stripes, but the remaining homework is all about the course and equipment not the names on the start list.
“I still need to do the first loop but have done the start to the finish area and rode the second loop today,” she said about her recon rides so far. “It will be interesting to see what equipment choices are made because there are some really rough sectors but also a lot of pavement.
“I’m having a good year, and having a lot of fun. I’m super thankful for my team. It’s special to see it all come together this year.”
