After consistently being at the pointy end of the World Cup circuit for the past several years, with podiums in five of the World Cup rounds last year, and a third-place at the World Championships in Lenzerheide, it was expected that Emily Batty would continue her winning ways in 2019. Perhaps even finally getting that elusive World Cup win. When she finished 28th in Albstadt, it was her worst World Cup race result ever. A 38th in Nove Mesto meant it was no fluke, something was off. I caught up with Emily Batty after the World Championships in Mont-Sainte-Anne to find out more about what made this season so difficult for her and how she's turned things around towards the end of the season to finish 9th on home soil.
How was your World Championships race?
It was a good race. It’s not very often that I don’t start either on the front or the second row but this year has been very difficult after such a great season last year. I’ve definitely taken a step way back and have had to overcome a lot of personal challenges to get back to what I’m capable of. I started on the fifth row and I think I was already a minute and a half down after lap one. I definitely paid for being way back in the start, but once it opened up I was able to start riding to my own potential.
I finished top nine and was the top Canadian. These positions and these races are crucial because the Olympic selection is heavily based on them. Top 5 was a ticket to Tokyo. I was able to eventually ride my own race and getting into those top positions came towards the middle of the race. I was just able to focus on the process and be in the moment. The fans were insane. It felt like this was a really good turnout and I’m so grateful for all the people that came out. There were a few times on the climbs where it was so loud. People could be on either side of the course so it was just a tunnel of screaming. My ears were ringing. It was spectacular. I had 45 or 50 family members here. It’s pretty incredible.
What bike did you race on?
Believe it or not, I actually chose the 27.5 hardtail. I don’t think anyone else was racing a hardtail. But the weight of the bike and the length of the bike are really important to me and I like the precision of the light bike, a sub-19 lb. mountain bike is very important to me. I race better on a light bike so I left the suspension bike in the trailer and I went with the hardtail. I felt strong on the climbs and I wasn’t riding the descents quite to my full potential, but I wasn’t losing a ton of time.
Do you think the Mont-Sainte-Anne course is one that suits you?
For the most part, I think that all race tracks have to suit you. A lot of the time it comes down to power to weight on the climbing. I’ve always been superior technically. I’m not the fastest, but I’ve always been good at technical, good at steep climbs. I think it’s a track that suits me, however I think that all the tracks have to suit you. You can’t just choose ones that suit you, you have to train for all the aspects of the different World Cups.
Why do you think your results haven’t been where they were last year this season?
There’s a lot of political background to it. All my Canada government funding was pulled when they implemented a new government testing thing. So Adam [ed: Adam Morka, Emily’s husband and coach] unfortunately didn’t travel with me most of the winter and summer.
Adam and I also tried a few new things and potentially overreached. We kind of lost sight of what works for me and got overwhelmed with the political side of it. Once we came back to our normal and Adam was able to travel with me, I started to come around and I started to show signs of myself again.
The loneliness of just being on your own… Where I live, we pretty much have to be away all season long because the training environment isn’t quite up to par for what it takes to race World Cups. So I have to be gone for nine months of the year. And being on my own, that really affected me. There’s a lot to it but those are the main things that made the season a little bit harder than it needed to be.
So in the past couple years, Adam has been training you and travelling with you to every World Cup?
Yes. An athlete’s happiness is almost more important than anything and in the past we’ve always travelled together and he’s been on all the training camps. But he was home a lot more this year. I’m a social person. I don’t have a big village but there are a few people that I rely on, the few sponsors that I really, really cherish, and my small village. Adam is my coach, my training partner, my manager. He’s been that role since I was 16 years old. So it’s a big part of who I am and in extracting that potential.
Did the Trek team dynamics change at all with the addition of Jolanda Neff?
Not in any negative way. It’s been great. Honestly we haven’t really had much time to spend together because we’ve had such different schedules. At a couple of the World Cups we didn’t room together because once Adam started coming to the races with me again we just did our own thing again. Because I would rather be with him and my normal. So we stayed on our own and not with the Trek team. But she is an incredible person on and off the bike. We just haven’t had a lot of opportunities to get to know each other. She’s an amazing person and a great addition to the team. I look forward to getting to know her even more, she’s such a fun person.
What’s your ideal scenario for being happiest and racing your best?
To extract my athletic potential I have to be happy. I have to be in sunshine and training. I just need quality, repetitive training without political pull. Happiness is crucial. Where I choose to train is usually very selective. I do a lot altitude training in places that I enjoy and have good memories from. Having Adam at the training camps that count and at the races and venues that are important make a big difference for me. I’m a social person so being alone is not healthy long-term. Depression after a few bad races sets in and it’s easy to fall into a really dark place. It’s just important for me to rely on those people that really matter.
So you basically spent all winter alone in Arizona?
I know it sounds horrible. I did yeah. I shouldn’t have gone back to Tucson. It’s a great training ground but I’ve done that now for ten years and I’m burned out on that location. Location means a lot to me and weather means a lot to me. Arizona is really cost-effective, it’s great for being in one spot for a long period of time and the weather’s usually pretty consistent but I should not have returned to that location. I should have gone somewhere that I wasn’t so burned out on. I should have gone somewhere that I was excited to be.
So we’re going to do some fun stuff this season together. We’re going to take our truck and our dog and go south. We’re going to go to Red Bull Rampage, hopefully a few Supercross events in California and meet some of the Red Bull athletes. That’s my dream. I would rather meet Ken Roczen than Beyonce. That’s how cool I think Ken Roczen is. We’re going to get through this next week and then we have some fun things planned in the fall.
I watched one of your YouTube videos on nutrition, did you try different things this year?
People always want to know what athletes are doing for nutrition so that was fun for me. I definitely enjoy doing the vlogs. I got away from that just because I wasn’t in a place where I could be the version of myself that I want to be, so I set that aside for now, but it’s definitely coming back because we have a lot of stuff we want to share.
Nutrition is a fun topic. I did do some different things however I don’t think that worked. I think I have to go back to what I normally do. And I did. People are like ‘You can’t be keto’ but I was never keto. People were like ‘You have to eat bananas.’ But if you add up what I eat in a day I was never keto. It was definitely carbohydrates in abundance. But I definitely dabbled in that realm. Then after a week I knew that I had to go back to normal.
What are your plans in the next year?
This year has been a qualifier for our Olympic selection. And I was two seconds off a bronze medal in Rio so I have every intention of going to Tokyo and it’s just not gone the way I was hoping this season. However we still have one race next year to make it. We have our first World Cup which is Czech Republic. So that is the final qualifier for the Olympics. I have to go into the Czech Republic in complete form to get that spot. And hopefully win the race. That’s my goal.
This fall we’re just going to go to a bunch of events with Red Bull and do some really fun epic trail riding and get back to the roots and push our skills. That’s something that I kind of got away from. I really enjoy pushing that edge as far as technical riding and I haven’t done that for quite a while. So I want to bring fun back. It’s still always really professional but I got away from having fun and I think took it a little bit too seriously in the last 12 months.
So how exactly is the Canadian Olympic team formed?
Yeah that’s its own story lingering in the background as the seasons not unfolded the way I’d love to have said it did. All of these bad races means you’re not qualifying yet. The priority for making the Canadian team is top 5 at World Championships. That’s an automatic. None of us made that, but I was top nine and was still best Canadian. Then best World Cup position all of this year as well as Czech Republic next year. So pretty much it means I have to go out and get podium, ideally first, in Czech Republic to seal the deal. Right now we have t
wo Canadian positions for Tokyo.
240 Comments
I'm sorry she had a rough season, but come on. People like Emily receiving carding has been detrimental to Canada's national teams across most, if not all Olympic sports and frankly I'm glad to see it go to someone more deserving.
She drives a loaner Porsche from Pfaff. A local-ish car dealer wants to support her. So what?
Her trainer and manager happens to be her husband. She would usually have to pay 2 people to do those services as well as pay for their travel and lodging.
Her income needs to be maximized in her competitive years, since the span of time any rider will be competitive isn’t very long, and it’s not like her career is one that is putting away retirement saving for her, she has to budget for that.
If Canada was outputting better racers, then they would be qualifying for the elite XC and should be backed by our country. There aren’t as good or better, so support the one that was highly competitive the year before.
I don’t understand the hate towards her. She’s generally positive, competitive and gives back to the mountain biking community in her hometown.
Placing so close to Kate Courtney in Mt. Saint-Anne shows she’s getting her grove back, even after starting in the 5th row.
That’s just my $0.02
For somebody to be worthy on the international stage there is an immense level of talent and dedication. I dont think it's a matter of athlete X needed a Gov grant to be able to compete at that level. It's more a case of athlete x is obviously going to compete at this level, so let's give them a grant.
I draw comparisons to hockey and the talent level that Crosby or McDavid have. It's already apparent long before anybody even has to wonder.
She's blaming the Canadian government for taking away roughly $25,000 that she used to cart her husband/trainer around, but that money got taken away because she makes more than $90,000 a year and just didn't want to be out of pocket on her possibly six figure income? ????
PB: So you basically spent all winter alone in Arizona?
EB: know it sounds horrible. I did yeah. I shouldn’t have gone back.
#firstworldproblems
And why shouldn't the Canadian government help support her? A lot of young riders get stoked to ride because of her.
If you get used to something and it’s pulled that can cause issues. Not withstanding, training, travelling, eating, maintaining and all the rest costs a ton of money. Hell, on paper I earn well more than this completely random 90k figure but there’s absolutely no way I could afford to train half the year and ride bikes. Not going to happen.
There is a point around marketing, that perhaps could help the image. There are people that do that for a crust (help that is). The whole Porsche thing isn’t perhaps the best tactic, even though I’m also sure she probably doesn’t own it.
Perhaps there’s a story here around authenticity and finding the right groove. We should refrain from piling shit on people when we don’t know the full story though. She’s a person just like the rest of us. Just wants to do well in a chosen field and feel good about it, put food on the table and be happy. Nothing wrong with that.
I knew a kid in high school who drove a Porsche. It was a piece of crap and barely cost anything.
And reaction is often judgment. Individual who has held the celebrity above themselves due to reasons I described before, which gets further amplified by "I came here to be entertained but I found something I don't agree with" suddenly feels that such person is below them. this releases additional aggression and will to be condescending. Not only that: because celebritiy "broke" common values, individual will try to gang up with others and throw sht at them.
To sum up: we are tasting our own crap if we treat web entertainment like interviews seriously. I am pretty sure, Emily looked back at this and thoght "I shouldn't have said this and that", "I said this and that well", and... "well, I don't care anyways".
We have to be aware though, that it is a privilege to hear athletes speak their mind in interviews, whatever it is. In Public Relations in advanced Politics, you keep statements meaningless and avoid answering ciritque because it is strongly advised to do so. Backlash from journalists and media will always be there and more you throw to them, the more will they feed on it, twist it the other way around. The only point of a politician to be out there, visible. The content is less important and does not need to have much integrity. You need an angle, that's it. All ends up as meaningless pulp and playing dumb.
Of all things, expecting examplary behavior from celebrities in random interviews is silly. But at the same time, well. That's the price for being known. Then you have to deal with lunatics who tell you that you are amazing and you changed their life...
Have you looked at the environment of the Specialized Gravity Team? Who was the first to jump the fence when Loic laid down his winning run? Have you seen Loic & Finn interact? It looks like a damn good team to me. And the support they get......Wow. If there's one thing that team needs it's a couple of Women riders to balance the books.
Given, the XC Team has really taken a beating this year with injuries, illness, winding down careers, team changes (Langvad, Gaze, Grotts, Kulhavý & Courtney) but have you seen them together before? Did you watch them at the Cape Epic the past two years? It looked like a family reunion on the finish line. Even the sponsored non-factory team folks joined in. Personally, it seems like a team I'd like to be part of even if it's going through a major rebuilding phase.
I know it's cool to bag on the Big S and some of it in the past was very warranted but I think you might want to dig a bit deeper before including them in the mess the Trek Factory Team seems to be in at this time.
Cheers
Gosh, take it easy soldier. The subject is EB and XCO. Not Specialized DH team, not Specialized Road team.
I didn't curse one single syllable. I used to be able to bring wallpaper down with a good stream of them.
I really like EB and made some comments earlier this year concerning the Trek Factory Team and the possibility of it being a source of her woes. I reiterate that I'm hopeful she'll bounce back; but I think that might include a change of team to bring it about.
Road Team? Wow, nice cheap shot. Just couldn't contain yourself could ya?
Too funny, all 5 I mentioned are Cape Epic winners. You know the biggest XC Race on the planet.
Now, is that Mad like angry or Mad like insane, or both? LOL
Have a good one Fella....
I'm not sure that came out as you intended it to :O
All the comments made me think of this Native American Proverb:
"Great Spirit, help me never to judge another until I have walked in his moccasins, 2 weeks." (or two moons)
I'm a little surprised that she's expected to fly her trainer around on her own dime... seems like something Trek would cover but idk.
Hope she can regain her flow in 2020, the women's field has been a blast to watch this year and more podium contenders = better show!
All the best
Cheers!
Catharine Pendrel, 755 pts
Haley Smith, 685 pts
Emily Batty, 464 pts
UCI Ranking (updated today, with 2019 World Championships points)
Haley Smith, 1256 pts
Catharine Pendrel, 1138 pts
Emily Batty, 585 pts
And she is right, Canada has secured two places for the Olympics next year, I would say it is impossible to beat Switzerland, Netherlands or the USA and get three places. But it is a little more complicated than that https://www.uci.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/tokyo2020olympicgames-qualificationsystem-mountainbike-en_english.pdf
That is why she needs that top spot in Nové Město na Moravě.
I am now a bigger fan than ever. Kill it in the Czech Republic next season, EB!
If "jealous prick" is the "kind of name calling" that makes you leap for Mod assistance here...well...maybe you're in the wrong place. I'm not saying it's right, but this isn't a utopia and it requires a bit of a thicker skin.
Back to your regularly scheduled assumptions...
And the dude saying she comes across as single on IG. You serious? She's an athlete paid to post pictures on Instagram. I wouldn't expect much non sponsor, non mountain bike related content on her page. Do you want her to exclusively state her relationship status? You're right not much of your business.
SMH, imagine talking about an elite international mtb athlete as if she's an insta-thot thirst trap account. How exactly does she come across single? Did she send you flirty DMs? Get a life.
Stay thirsty my friends....
It seems like a lot of people have lost sight of the grind required to be at the top level of sport.
You want more money? Train like your life depends on it and win some races
If it’s drug testing...then I have more questions
Clearly she is making more than $90k AFTER expenses. Not sure I can really sympathize that no longer getting extra cash from the government leads her to decide not pay out of pocket to have her husband travel with her.
She might earn a lot, but it sounded like lots got swallowed with being away training for 9months of the year. So maybe the extra Can $ was needed?
Leaves me with a couple of questions:
Were they relying on the government funding to also effectively fund a position for her husband? Where does her team sit in the discussion regarding finances?
My point is that almost all athletes at that level are making sacrifices to pursue their sport...
She is getting paid probably a lot more than others as a Redbull athlete.
Also flying all over the world and spending a long time staying in Europe (especially on the CAD) takes a LOT of money. You can't be winning WC events if you're slumming it in hostels.
www.cyclingcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/2017-05-15-2018-CYCLING-AAP-Criteria-EN.pdf
www.cyclingcanada.ca/resources/athlete-resources/athlete-assistance-program
So unless her taxable income jumped from less than $60k to $90k in one year, the funding she lost would have been less than the maximum possible $21,000.
The site also has articles reporting Catharine Pendrel has been eligible for the same government funding at least as far back as 2014 - but has declined it annually to enable other athletes to receive her funding instead:
www.cyclingcanada.ca/sport/general/news/sport-canada-to-fund-72-cyclists-in-2014
A discussion around various athlete's compensation and how they choose to spend/save there money is a pointless debate since none of us have any facts...
1. Again, AFTER expenses; I assuming flying to a WC is and staying at a reasonable hotel is an expense.
2. These are her choices. She chooses to drive an expensive car. To VLOG about whatever. To not spend her own money to have her husband accomplish her.
I get most other countries subsidize athletes so they can represent the country.
Unfortunately, that is pretty low on the issues that need addressed here.
None of us are is a position to critique or anything because none of us know... Maybe Emily thought she could manage the change and it just didn't go well. Shit happens, but we shouldn't be lambasting her financial choices when we really don't understand her financial situation...
What does it matter if I don’t know the details?
It is like ACA healthcare subsidies in the US. If you make under 40K you quality for substantial money cuts or free healthcare. But make over 40K, and you get nothing and pay a lot for healthcare. A gradual sliding scale would reach more people and would be much more fair.
Emily desrves to be supported financially by the Canadian govt. But this sounds suspicious. Can any one elaborate on this testing thing? What happened?
But you can deny that over the last 5 years Batty had been at the front every time it mattered. She won the canadian champs 4 years in a row including 2019, she was on the podium at Worlds in Nove Mesto in 2016, podium again at Lenzerheide last year and she was the first canadian at MSA. She was 4th at the Rio olympic race. She only really missed that little bit to beat the best of the best.
So yes this year she had a pretty bad world cup season. Haley Smith had a better overall season by having more consistency in the top 20 but I currently don't see her being able to match her in those one day big events right now. Pendrel is a world champ and podiumed at Rio but she will be 40 next year. Her chances are narrowing down every year. On a good day when all stars align I can see Maghalie Rochette doing good results (and she got a medal on an ebike this year) but she hasn't even been racing world cups. Other good canadian females were junior or u23.
Many people do this.
It’s silly to believe she’s given Porsche’s. I’d guess that she’s entitled to drive a Porsche for promotion. Could be a taxable benefit.
#blametrudeau
How did i go from 9 upvotes and zero downvotes, to 9 upvotes and 10 downvotes?
Not that i really care, but it's a bit weird.
youtu.be/kLScpWIbxjY
www.fao.org/state-of-forests/en
Growing vegetables is a valiant system that usually ends in increased soil erosion, even if the most sustainable methods are used. Top soil is 2nd only to water as far as a valuable resource, and it takes thousands of years to regenerate (unless of course as mentioned grass is grown). As for greenhouse operations please read some scholarly articles on the fossil fuels and carbon impacts caused by growing food in greenhouses, you may be surprised.
What's important is understanding where your food comes from first and foremost. Do what you can to buy local for your area. The farmers in your area will be growing what is sustainable for that given area, and that is what is important, but please don't try to force your views onto everyone else as you may have a limited view on what it's like in different areas of the world.
As for the article above and Emily Batty, all I have to say that I am rooting for you to get that spot on the Canadian team!
In the end a diet which works for you may not suit others, maybe just be thoughtful over choice but eat what works for you.
"Hell, only 3% of US soymeal is consumed by people. 68% of the oil is used for processed foods and for frying." Please explain to me how this does not also equal "consumed by people".
"80% of the soy produced is meal, 20% oil - have a look at the US Soy Checkoff website."
The value of the oil by weight is significantly more than the soymeal "byproduct" that is fed to animals. What are your thoughts on this?
Tipical endorphine junkie...have tons around here too..so sad
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