After racing in the Union Cycliste Internationale mountain bike World Cup’s elite field for the first time last season and progressively improving, Savilia Blunk made a big change to help continue her upward trajectory in the upcoming the 2023 season.
With an eye toward racing the entire World Cup series this year and qualifying for the 2024 Olympic Games, Blunk recently signed with Rockrider Racing, a French UCI World Cup that is a sister company of Decathlon bikes.
“I got the opportunity to work with Rockrider Racing and join their World Cup team,” Blunk said. “It’s an incredible opportunity to learn from experienced teammates and be in an environment of a French World Cup team.”
Blunk will also continue working with her previous team’s sponsor, Orange Seal.
Blunk started working with Orange Seal in 2021 and then joined the Orange Seal Off Read team with her boyfriend, Cole Paton, last year for the 2022 season.
“I was able to bring Orange Seal on as a team sponsor,” Blunk said. “I’m really happy to continue working with them.”
While Blunk plans to race in all eight World Cup stops, which are mostly held in Europe, she said she needed to be in an environment that is sustainable for her so she’ll continue living in the U.S. and travel to back and forth to Europe for races.
“As an American racing in the World Cup, I’m at a slight disadvantage,” Blunk said. “Having a base with a European team will be a great resource. They have all of the resources and support there. That will be really important and create a good environment for me.”
She recently participated in her first team camp with Rockrider Racing in France and Spain. She said the camp involved more media than training, but it gave her a chance to meet her new teammates. “They’re awesome,” she said. “At a team camp in December I got to know the team and bonded with them. I’m really excited to learn from them. They’re all European and they’re more used to racing at that level.”
The team is made up of six riders from four nations, including Blunk, Emeline Detilleux of Germany, Greta Seiwald of Italy and French riders Olivia Onesti, Joshua Dubau and Mathias Azzaro.
Blunk is training in Northern California, where her parents live. She’ll soon head to Spain to train for a couple months, then do some early season races there to score UCI points to help her get into World Cup short-track races and get better starting positions for the cross-country Olympic races.
“At the majority of World Cups (last year) I was I was starting in the sixth or seventh row, which was a big disadvantage,” she said.
Blunk also said she’ll be in Durango this summer doing some altitude training. She plans to race at the U.S. Cup in Vail and Fayetteville (Arkansas) as well as in the national championships, where she’ll look to defend her cross-country Olympic championship.
“It’s really important for me to have a presence in the U.S. and race in races here,” she said.
The first World Cup is scheduled for May 12-14 in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic.
Decathlon Rockrider is also developing an all new mountain bike that Blunk and her teammates will be racing on in 2023. The team’s sports director, Stephane Tempier, raced for Rockrider last year in its inaugural season, but switched roles for the upcoming season and will serve as a middleman between the team and companies designing products for them to test.
“My goal is to focus on the Olympics in 2024 and have a consistent season,” she said. “It’s my second year as an elite and I want to continue to build and gain confidence; I had some really good races at the World Cup and in the world championships.”
The World Cup and world championships are part of the Olympics’ qualifying criteria. Blunk finished 13th at the 2022 world championships in France.
