Race Report | Round #4 French Enduro Series, Les Orres

Round #4 of the French Enduro Series seemed slightly lackluster with three hugely influential riders missing from the starting lineup. Loic Piazon and Clément Benoit sat out from the speed-emblazoned track of Les Orres and twinned with Florian Baladier carrying a serious injury, the race was there for the taking. Full race report follows:

The 4th round could have been a corner stone in the 2016 Enduro French Cup rankings and that was indeed the case. Of the 310 riders at the start gate, we noticed straight away that Loic Piazon and Clément Benoit were missing, due to injuries at training or on races after Millau. Then Florian Baladier, 3rd in the overall rankings, got injured during the first stage. It was therefore 3 serious favorites knocked out of the race before they could properly enter the battle; this sport could sometimes be very cruel.

Some riders were really looking forward to this race in Les Orres. The older ones had memories of an Enduro Series round in 2005 whilst the younger ones like its bike park and its steep, sometimes very steep tracks. On this original Enduro Series format and for the first time this season, the riders with better DH skills thought they’d have an edge, and it would be the case.

Gaetan Dupin, the Ex-XC rider converted successfully to enduro rider, was in action, but Nico Filippi came as the overall leader on this 4th round but would finally go back home 3rd after a tough week-end for him, he would have liked to do more damage control. Baptiste Gaillot now 4th overall has also lost a lot on this round, with probably a bit of exhaustion after so many races for him.

On the scratch time, this week-ends winners are all on the podium:
Sébastien Claquin (and also very young) enduro rider got his first win thanks to an exceptional Stage 1 ridden to perfection by the Marseille born rider. Ludovic Oget, the Eastern man, also had his best performance and progresses every week-end on his technical bases as ex DH racer.

Camille Servant confirmed all the good things we thought about him by getting on his first podium. If you add solid Yannick Pontal who came 4th, we got here the big winners of the week-end as, with Filippi and Gaillot, they’re now 6th and only 6th, to are both really close together for the title.
With the female category, Mélanie Pugin was dominating the rest of the field but a puncture would make her lose too much time over Morgane Such. Axelle Murigneux was very consistent and has the overall leading position but it’ll be very tight with her 2 rivals Morgane Such & Anaïs Laroubine. Julie Duvert who was leader until now was injured for this stage and we hope to see her again soon.

In Master 1, strong domination of Yannick Sénéchal, whilst Gilles Doze leads the overall thanks to his consistency. In Master 2 Patrick Bonifay is “cruising along” towards the title. The Junior category offered us an exceptional show in Les Orres. Quantity and quality, the future is bright to replace the French enduro riders of the EWS world level.

Rafael Palot took the win, but Valentin Brulas was only at 3.7sec and Corentin Macinot at 6sec. The spectators had the pleasure to witness this intense fight in Les Orres. For the overall, Valentin Brulas is still leading in front of Gatien Pernet a bit behind these last two days. We’ll meet again in Valloire the 8th and 9th of August, one of the founding rounds of the Enduro Series, where French enduro wrote history many times.

Results

Men
1st – CLAQUIN Sebastien | Giant Offroad Enduro Team
2nd – OGET Ludovic | ACBR Specialized Pull In
3rd – SERVANT Camille | Tribe Sport Group Yeti
4th – PONTAL Yannick | Alltricks Transition
5th – TORDO Dimitri | BH

Womens
1st – SUCH Morgane | Massilia
2nd – MARCHAL Alexandra
3rd – MEZCUA-JENSEN Nina

For full results and more info, visit: tribe-events.com

Words & Photos: Courtesy of Tribe Events

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