European MTB Championships - CM

Cappadocia, Turkey, July 12-15, 2007

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Race 6 - July 15: Elite Men

Hermida top Euro Champs podium

By Aybars Oge Sürücü

The Elite Men's European Cross-Country Championships started after the morning's Elite Women's race under cloudy weather was cloudy and cooler temperatures. After riding as a compact group thorugh the start loop, the race up and down the first technical climb of the day started in earnest and ultimate winner Jose Antonio Hermida (Spa) made led the charge to break 20 riders off the front.

Julien Absalon was hiding in the group for the first lap. While he was trying to preserve some energy in the group and the others were trying to feel out each other's performance level, Hermida was off the front and increasing the pace.

But the real rage was happening in the group. At first lap the surprise was Florien Vogel who was leading the group. The big group divided to smaller ones. Roel Paulissen, Christof Sauser, Julien Absalon and Fredrik Kessiakoff were following Vogel with a constant tempo. They rode wheel to wheel during 2nd lap. But Absalon saw that he lost time to the leader and attacked.

Vogel and Kessiakoff were not able to keep pace with Absalon and started to ride together setting up a battle for third place.

After the race Hermida said "it was my tactic to make an attack from the start to have the gap before the first descent. I tried to keep my gap but I saw that the others lost time and started to ride faster to stay safe."

And Absalon was happy after his bad start to have 2nd place. "At the start I was not feeling faster. I wanted to see the others to attack and I wanted to have control but I found my rythm later."

During the race, Turkish Radio Television interview UCI President Pat McQuaid and UEC President Vladimir Holecek. Both of them were pleased with the high standards of organization at the event and suggested Turkey was capable of hosting a World Championships in the future. Turkish Cycling Federation Vice President Abdurrahman Acikalin said that "We will go for 2010 MTB World Championships and 2013 Road Cycling World Championships."

Results

1 Jose Antonio Herminda Ramos (Spain)    2.06.42
2 Julien Absalon (France)                   1.35
3 Fredrik Kessiakoff (Sweden)               2.39
4 Christoph Sauser (Switzerland)            3.14
5 Florian Vogel (Switzerland)               4.14
6 Wolfram Kurschat (Germany)                4.49
7 Yury Trofimov (Russia)                    5.12
8 Carlos Coloma Nicolas (Spain)             5.26
9 Roel Paulissen (Belgium)                  5.39
10 Filip Meirhaeghe (Belgium)               6.18
11 Johann Pallhuber (Italy)                 6.19
12 Ruben Ruzafa Cueto (Spain)               6.34
13 Marco Aurelio Fontana (Italy)            6.43
14 Peter Riis Andersen (Denmark)            6.57
15 Lado Fumic (Germany)                     7.10
16 Jean Christophe Peraud (France)          7.11
17 Rudi van Houts (Netherlands)             7.18
18 Bart Brentjens (Netherlands)             7.34
19 Manuel Fumic (Germany)                   7.37
20 Lukas Flückiger (Switzerland)            7.38
21 Cédric Ravanel (France)                  8.01
22 Tony Longo (Italy)                       8.16
23 Chistoph Soukup (Austria)                8.32
24 Jürg Graf (Switzerland)                  9.13
25 Milan Sp. (Czech)                       10.07
26 Hannes Metzler (Austria)                10.12
27 Kristián Hynek (Czech)                  10.37
28 Martin Gujan (Switzerland)              10.55
29 Yader Zoli (Italy)                      11.01
30 Ivan Alvarez Gutierrez (Spain)          11.10
31 Inaki Lejarreta Errasti (Spain)         11.27
32 Olivier Beckingsale (Great Britian)     11.34
33 Jelmer Pietersma (Netherlands)          11.59
34 Maxim Gogolev (Russia)                  12.05
35 Robin Seymour (Ireland)                 12.57
36 Sergiy Rysenko (Ukraine)                13.20
37 Giuseppe Lamastra (Italy)               13.25
38 Artem Oriov (Russia)                    13.50
39 Marek Galinski (Poland)                 14.20
40 Milan Barényi (Slovakia)                14.46
41 Filip Eberl (Czech)                     15.41
42 Nicolas Bazin (France)                  15.48
43 Caspar Austa (Estonia)                  16.04
44 Torsten Marx (Germany)                  16.09
45 Jochen Kass (Germany)                   16.40
46 Eygeny Petchenine (Russia)              17.02
47 Bas Peters (Netherlands)                17.55
48 Igor Bogdan (Ukraine)                   21.30
49 Taavi Selder (Estonia)                  22.00
One lap down
50 Muammer Yildiz (Turkey)                      
51 Alexandr Lomakin (Russia)                    
Two laps down
52 Mehmet Kurt (Turkey)                         
53 Yunus Yetkin (Turkey)                        
54 Yilmaz Kanat (Turkey)                        
Three laps down
55 Serkan Calici (Turkey)                       
56 Dzintars Ozolins (Latvia)                    
DNF Martin Gispert Labarta (Spain)              
DNF Marcin Karczywiski (Poland)                 
DNF Ivan Seledkov (Russia)                      
DNF Bilal Akgul (Turkey)                        
DNF Jlaus Nielsen (Denmark)                     
DNF Maros Kovac (Slovakia)                      
DNF Michael Weiss (Austria)                     
DNS Silvio Bundi (Switzerland)                  
DNS Gion Manetsch (Switzerland)                 
DNS Lenart Noc (Slovenia)