The first days of racing in San Dorligo della Vale are over and the victories go to Austria. Here are a few impressions and the results directly from the SloEnduro organizers.

The winners of first event of this year’s SloEnduro series, the Enduro 3 Camini in San Dorligo della Vale near Trieste, Italy, are Austrians Birgit Braumann (Trek Gravity Girls) and Daniel Schemmel (Cube Action Team).
Last year’s winner, Italian Giulia Albanese (UC Caprivesi) finished in second and Austrian junior Yana Dobnig (RLM Mondraker Racing Team) in third place of women’s race. Daniel was followed by Peter Mlinar (KK Črn trn) in second and last year’s race and series winner Vid Peršak (Gaes Orbea Enduro Crew) in third place, both from Slovenia.

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Slovenian Matjaž Istenič (Energijateam.com) finished as best junior in 12th place. Robi Kordež (Black Hole Enduro Team) was fastest in younger master category and Italian Ruggero Iob (Pedale Gemonese) in 40+ class.

183 riders from 9 countries took part in 5th edition of E3C race, organized by Trieste club 360 MTB.

Apart from riding skills and endurance the order over 6 stages and over 1200 vertical meters of climbing was also decided by crashes and flat tires. A flat tire slowed down Peršak in the last stage after he’s been trying all day to bring down the 30 sec penalty he received for not making it to Saturday evening’s prologue. Finally he had to settle for third place.

Three stage winners in men’s race

Mlinar won the prologue, followed by three stage wins by Peršak. The overall winner Schemmel won the last stage which carried the name Kenda Superstage for its variety and length. At the end of the day and a total of 15 minutes of racing Schemmel had just under 7 second of oadvantage over Mlinar and over 21 from Peršak.

I have bee trying to keep a good pace and not spoil it by crashing. It was my first enduro race where I managed to do that,” the 18 year old winner from Styria said. He still races a lot of cross-country last season and also won the National Championships in the olympic discipline. Among other success he won the junior category at the Enduro European Championships. This year he is on Cube team and it is his first full enduro season. “It was a nice race and I will come to more SloEnduro races. Besides that I will be racing in Enduro World Series in Europe and Italian Superenduro races,” he added.

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For the experienced Birgit Braumann this victory is even more important because he broke her arm here a year ago. “I started out very very nervous today, I remembered my crash from last year and I didn’t expect it would influence me so much. I started to settle down after the first two stages and I really enjoyed the last stage, I was relaxed and it finally felt like racing,” Birgit told after finishing and making a comfortable gap on Albanese.
The trails over the valley are a combination of packed dirt and rocks. The overnight rain soaked the upper trails and the upper trails and they were slowly drying out during the day in bora winds.

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See you in Cerkno

SloEnduro continues on May 28th and 29th in Cerkno which was voted the best venue of 2015 season. Before that there are two one day SloEnduro 4Fun events in the calendar – Enduro Krokar in Dobrna on April 24th and Merjasec Enduro on May 14th in Ruše.

Complete results and more photos here: sloenduro.com

Words and Photos: SloEnduro PR


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