Winners of Enduro Cerkno, second race of SloEnduro series, are Austrian Petra Bernhardt (Radlager) and Slovenian Vid Peršak (Gaes Orbea Enduro Crew).
Winners of Enduro Cerkno, second race of SloEnduro series, are Austrian Petra Bernhardt (Radlager) and Slovenian Vid Peršak (Gaes Orbea Enduro Crew).
Vid, the 2015 SloEnduro Champion, already won Saturday’s prologue in Cerkno and went on to win four out of five Sunday’s stages in Cerkno ski resort. Daniel Schemmel (Cube Action Team) won the third stage, the longest one, which also counted as Kenda SuperStage.
Tadej Razpet, member of host team Pedal Racing from Cerkno, finished second in the prologue and defended the position for some time on Sunday but he finally had to settle with third behind Peršak and Schemmel. The other local rider, the young Jan Štucin, finished 3rd in the prologue but broke his wrist in a crash in Sunday’s second stage.
Austrian Kevin Maderegger (Ghost Factory Racing Riot Team) in 4th and Slovenian Kristijan Medvešček (Kamplc Racing Team) in 5th also made it on podium.
Petra was behind another Austrian Yana Dobnig (RLM Mondraker Racing Team) in the prologue but then won all five today’s stages. The former top downhiller won the overall with a gap of over a minute. Italian Giulia Albanese (UC Caprivesi) finished third.
Matjaž Istenič (Energijateam.com) won the junior category, Robert Kordež (Black Hole Enduro Team) the master 1, Austrian Cri Maierhofer (Radlager) the master 2 category and Dušan Oblak (Servis Oblak Žiri) the hobby class.
There were 125 riders from six countries on start.
Nejc, got a photo of Petra without her helmet? 🙂
Quotes from the fastest
“I was exaggerating, I jumped everything I could,” said Vid who turns 20 this July. “I could have risked less and it would be just fine. But I will seem slower the next time… I crashed three times for dumb mistakes, lack of concentration. But it was ok overall, it was the first time I won the prologue. The stages were good.”
Vid will take time off from racing until EWS round 4 in La Thuile mid-July for university exams.
His peer Daniel told us: “I did fine except for last stage where I went off course. I had a hard week of riding and I was tired in the first stage but it was getting better each stage. Overall I’m happy. It was another great race.”
Daniel was stopped by two flats in EWS rd. 3 in Ireland where Vid finished 2nd in the U21 category.
It was the first enduro ever for Petra! “My friends motivated me,” she said. “The people were super friendly and nice and reminded me of the time when I was a World Cup downhill racer… that makes me really happy. This race means a lot to me because I had a bad back surgery – intervertebral disc op – half a year ago. I didn’t know if I would be able to ride for so many hours without pain – but it was fine all two days long. I loved the stages! It was great like always at the races in Slovenia.”
Lost transponder case solved
In Sunday’s third stage, the Kenda Superstage, Peršak lost his timing transponder after a crash. As stated in the rules in case time is not recorded, he first received a position equal to his average placing in the race – which meant the same time as the winner. But afterwards this time was replaced with the time (about 5 seconds slower) measured by another device – organizer’s camera on Vid’s helmet. This did not affect the race ranking but is more fair regarding the Kenda SuperStage ranking where times are accumulated all season long.
Show goes on in Bovec
Third race of SloEnduro series will be Soča Enduro on June 25th and 26th but before that two races of SloEnduro 4Fun series will be held: Enduro Gradec in Styria, Austria, on June 5th (with Schemmel on start. it’s his home race), and Enduro Krvavec in Slovenia on June 19th.
Also see
Enduro Cerkno: Video and ranking
First victories in 2016 SloEnduro go to Austria
Vid in top photo, all photos by Nejc Bole
Enduro Cerkno stage by stage results
