For the final round of the Enduro Round Series, the event came to the beautiful town of Finale Ligure in Italy. This place is a real riders favourite, as the place has it all. Finale has a gorgeous beach, real picturesque town, nice weather (so far!) and an atmosphere to die for. It is a real rider’s favourite. Day one has been an interesting day, with real tough climbs for all the riders, making the steep technical rocky descents seem that much tougher.
In the Pro men’s category times were tight, extremely tight between the top two, with a mere 1/10th of a second separating top spot man Yeti/Fox’s Jared Graves and Cannondale’s Jerome Clementz. After his win at the Trans-Provence Nico Lau had gained his confidence back again showing his talent on today’s stages. He finished fastest of day one but due to a 3 minute penalty for being late in a time control between stage 2 and 3.
Canyon Enduro Factory Racing’s Fabien Barel came in 3rd, but also after some amazing riding, GT Factory Racing’s Martin Maes came in 4th fastest, the fresh faced 16 year old rider managed fastest overall on stage 1, two seconds ahead of Barel!
The Pro women’s saw T-Mo Racing’s Tracy Moseley leading at first, to have a big ‘over the bars’ knocking her down into 2nd, so Ibis’s Anne-Caroline Chausson now leads. Main talking points of the day were the cancellation of stage 4, due to two things. Firstly one of the competitors had a big crash and had to be airlifted off, causing a massive delay.
Secondly some awkward switchbacks were removed, and after course builders added some bus-stops as alternative routes, without permission of the land owners, a fuss was made and the police stopped the running of that stage, crazy Italian politics!
The weather has been very kind, but there is still a possibility of rain tomorrow, which could really mess things up on the dry dusty tracks and make things nice and interesting.
For full results head over to www.enduroworldseries.com
Words: Jim Buchanan Pics: Doc Ward
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