Vid Peršak and Simona Kuchynkova win the opening round of 10th season of SloEnduro series in Grožnjan, Croatia.
Reigning Slovenian champion and four time SloEnduro overall champion Vid Peršak (Orbea Fox Enduro Team) was the only one to finish with the total time of five special stages under 14 minutes. Tarmo Ryynänen of Finland (Specialized Nordics), a rider with top 5 finishes in U21 category in Enduro World Series last year, finished in second place just over 5 seconds down, and Slovenian David Ivartnik (Golovec Trails, +15.99). Two more Slovenians earned their places on the five man overall podium: the former National Champ Jan Markič (ŠKTD Avče) in fourth place (+18.63) and 2021 SloEnduro champion Miha Smrdel (MBK Črni Vrh) in fifth (+19.87).
Peršak won three out of five stages, Markič was fastest in SS3 and Ryynänen was fastest in SS4.
Simona Kuchynkova (OKӨ EVERYWHERE Racing), a junior rider from Slovakia, on the other hand won all five special stages in women’s race. Croatian rider Gorana Težak (BK Buzet) finished second and young Slovenian rider Tina Smrdel (MBK Črni Vrh) in her first junior year. Kuchynkova already has an EWS U21 win and a 4th from downhill World Championships from last year!
Miha Smrdel was the fastest male junior rider in front of Austrian Valentin Frey (Team Dorrong) and teammate Jernej Kavčič. Sebastjan Stres (Kamplc Racing Team) was the fastest masters categories rider and Nace Krivonog of the revived Bosch Black Hole Enduro Team won men’s amateur category.
On the short course Ažbe Kalinšek (Bikehanic – 20 Chocolate) set the best time of all the participants by winning the U15 category which attracted 36 riders. Patrik Trošt (Kamplc Racing Team) won the U17 category.
Back to Grožnjan
After the almost completely lost 2020 season and the 2021 still heavily compromised by the epidemics, everyone deserved a great start to the 2022 racing season. And what a better place to do it than Grožnjan on Istria peninsula in Croatia. It is where the series ended for 6 times since its start in 2013, and started once before this year. It is also one of the most scenic locations you can imagine for a mountain bike enduro race with the medieval town and views of the Adriatic Sea.
For close to 200 riders representing 7 nations the hosts of Grožnjan Mountain Bike Club (BBK Grožnjan) prepared five trails as special stages with total length of the loop with transfers around 32 km with elevation gain and drop of approximately 1200 m. The youngest categories (U15 and U17) and the newly formed 4Fun category rode three of these special stages.
Two-day events are back in SloEnduro, 5 out of 8 organizers chose this format and Grožnjan was one of them. This means training on special stages (according to the schedule) on Saturday and a relaxed racing timetable on Sunday. In Grožnjan everyone enjoyed Saturday’s training ride, socialising on the trails, catching up after the winter and making new friends. Even the weather held up all the way to the evening when some strong winds came in along with some raindrops. But nothing to turn the trails into mud, just enough to make the conditions perfect for Sunday.
The winners
Vid Peršak: “Back into race pace after a long time for me. I started well, then I made some major mistakes on 3rd and 4th special stage. But I would say this is a good start of the season for me since it was the first race on the new bike and new suspension. I’m really happy for the great turnout and a wonderful event.”
Simona Kuchynkova: “My weekend was great, the weather, the trails, the location… all so cool. My goal was to find my race pace and I found it and I couldn’t be more stoked. It wasn’t that technical, more physical, great to kick off the season. It would be nice to come back to SloEnduro if I find the time. I will do four rounds of EWS this year.”
Results – overall
Results – by categories
Round two follows in just over a month – see on May 14 and 15 for SloEnduro Borovci in Ilirska Bistrica, Slovenia! Event details coming up here shortly.
Photos by Lorenzo Fattor @faber_l_f
