Az ötödik napon a legfiatalabb kerültek ismét a figyelem középpontjába, hiszen aznap rendezték a junior női és férfi mezőnyversenyeket. Miért pont ezt a napot hagytuk volna ki? Interjúk a dobogósokkal, videós összefoglalók, és saját képeinkből egy-egy szerény kis album a nap összefoglalójaként.
Női junior mezőnyverseny
Délelőtt, szinte reggel kezdődött az ifjú hölgyek versenye. 74.5 km várt rájuk – mondhatnánk, hogy még a nagy hőség előtt letudták a versenyt, de ez természetesen nem igaz, hiszen reggel 7 óra 30 fok fölött volt a hőmérséklet.
Alighogy elkezdődött a verseny, egy nagy bukás már meg is tizedelte a mezőnyt; néhány favorit, nagy név gyakorlatilag ki is szállt a küzdelmekből. Bár voltak próbálkozások a körözés során, a hollandok és az amerikaiak egyben tartották a mezőnyt, és ahogy az várható volt, mezőnyhajrá lett a vége. Az utolsó kilométeren olasz dominanciát láthattak a nézők, tökéletesen vezették fel a sprintet Balsamonak, aki elég simán nyerte a versenyt, volt ideje ünnepelni bőven.
Mögötte a sprintben amerikai ezüst és norvég bronz született – utóbbi tehetség idén már a felnőttek között is tisztességgel helytállt, úgyhogy jó lesz rájuk figyelni!
“We are very beautiful team, and the team is like only one person. We love each other and I must say thank you to my team mates. This is not my World Championships but our World Championships. A big thank you to my team mates. They were so beautiful and strong. It’s our title not only mine. This is great, not only for us, but for the whole of Italian female cycling. I can’t believe that I won this medal and I was feeling well. All the team believed in me so the race went well. Next year I will be Elite in Italian team, Valcar PBM. I know that it will be very difficult because I’m young. I hope to set some results.”
“It was a very unique course. The technical aspect was a big advantage for us, fortunately there was one straight away so the strong teams were able to string it out. You could see the first rider all the way up there and look behind and see all behind. At the finish luckily the Italians did a very good job stringing it out, that was very impressive and they were able to pull their rider out first. Very happy with silver medal. We came as a very strong team, four of us in total, so we came in good confidence. As a favourite I tried to stay under the radar a little bit, tested out my legs in the Time Trial, and used that to my advantage especially in the last kilometres. I’m happy to win a medal for the USA and silver is a nice colour. I grew up with a BMX background, which translated to sprinting pretty well, so we have a lot of criterium racing in America. Right now I would consider myself a sprinter, but going forward I don’t want to limit myself to that.”
“We were just two, but two strong girls. Ingvild’s (Gaskjenn) job was to cover attacks and we kind of switched covering them. Then she would deliver me on the front, and I would go from there. The Italians had a great lead-out today, but me and my team mate were very strong together. I like to be offensive, that’s racing so, of course it would be positive to have a bigger team, but I think we did great anyway. The attacks were tough throughout the race. The whole peloton was moving closely. I narrowly avoided a crash in the first few kilometres. Elisa had a perfect ride out in the final stretch and she deserved to win. I’m a bit disappointed, because I wanted to go for the gold medal, but of course a bronze in the World Championships is not bad. Next year, I’ll ride for Hitech Products. A Norwegian pro team, a team based on Norwegian riders, so I’m looking forward to race with girls from my own country.”
Férfi junior mezőnyverseny
Elég kemény, közel 3 órás versenyt láthattunk a nap második felében. A küzdelem különösen érdekes volt nekünk magyaroknak, hiszen Peák Barna és Karl Ádám a magyar színeket képviselve ott hajtott a mezőnyben.
Az apró darabokra bontott mezőnyből végül a dán Egholm szakadt el a vége felé, és beszólózott a célba, mögötte pedig a többi helyezésért ment már csak a sprint. Német ezüst és svájci bronz született; arról, hogy a mieinknek milyen napjuk volt, itt beszéltek hosszabban.
“My team mate Julius (Johansen) attacked, and nobody followed, nobody was on my wheel. Everybody was looking at each other. It was the final 10 kms. I thought: go for it. I knew that Julius was tired, but he’s always so strong. I thought we could make it together, but Julius had worked very hard. This win is for the team. It was a great team effort.
I said to Julius that it was only you and me, we can go for it now, but he took two or three turns. He was done, he could not continue. I just went for it. There wasn’t much time to speak. I followed my intuition. I probably knew first when I crossed the flame rouge, before that I just rode with everything I had. I wasn’t sure. There were some of the best riders behind me. I had nothing to lose. I wasn’t sure if I could make it to the finish. The one kilometre banner was my finish line. If I could make it with ten seconds to the last km, I figured that I could be the world champion. I’m unbelievably happy, crazy and I haven’t thought of this happening, so I think I have to get some time to realise it.”
“Our tactics was to bring me in the front to the final. In the middle of the race I saw a group go and I went there. The group did not work in the beginning but in the end they worked good. I was in the back of the group to save energy for the sprint. I was the only rider from our country in the front group. The Danish guy was in front, so there were only two medals available. If I could go as fast as I can I could take the silver medal. This is my first year as a junior, so I hope I can compete again next year.”
“It feels great to be on the podium here especially because I did not really expect it. It was an open race with flat course. So I’m really happy. In the end we knew that I’m the better sprinter than Marc (Hirschi). He told me that he would ride for me. When we saw the Danish go, I told him to go after them and he did a really good job, he really pulled hard and I could save the energy for the sprint. This was my last junior season. Next year I’ll be in the under 23 category. I’ll try to learn much and do some good races.”
A dohai világbajnokságon való részvételünket a Mesterbike segített megvalósítani.
