Longauer finishes 5th in the World Championship

World  Championship in austrian St. Johanne in Tirol are by no accident considered the peak of the season of the Masters category. This year it was already 44thedition.

Races  are  organized  each year on the same courses, both in time trial and in road disciplines. Time trial is 20km long (10km to a roundabout and back) with afake  downhill  for  the  majority of the first 10km, only the last 600m are uphill with an incline of 7%. Road race circuit is 35km long with a 6km long detourto/from finish. There are 3 climbs in the cirtuit – 3km, 1,5 and 600m long ones.

Ladislav  said  after the race: “I was hoping for a placing in Top 15 in the time trial, since the first 15 places are prizewinning. I knew I would have to keepmy time well under half an hour to accomplish my goal. I started well, even overtook 3 riders on my way to the roundabout where I noticed a time 13:41min., timegood  enough  for TOP 10. I pedalled at a speed slightly over 40km/h on my way back, but knew it was too slow for the prizewinning places. I finished 18th, lost1:46min.  to the Swedish winner Karlsson and lost only 2 seconds to my targeted 15th place. The road race for my age category 1948-1950 took place on August 31,2012.  The  time  was  not  that  summery  though  with  9 degrees Celsia and a rain at start of our 2 laps. Austrian Hrinkov accompanied with a Sweede Karlssonbroke-away  right  from the start. They had a slight advantage of 10-20 seconds in the first climb. I tried, along with another 11 riders, to close the gap, butwe  did  not succeed at this goal and their time gap even rose to some 30 seconds. Our group fell apart in the following climb, so only 4 of us were forming thechasing  group  now  –  a  Russian Moskalev, Dutch Ribbers and DeKindelder and me. We were not coming back to them despite seeing them ahead of us, the time gapreported  at  an  entry  to  the  2nd lap was 1 minute. I attacked with some 200m to go so as to reach the bronze medal, but Moskalev and Ribbers overtook me ascrossing  the finish line. I was sad about the outcome of the race, chances for podium like this might not come back again. But I am happy about my result, it’sthe best result I have obtained in this race and in a fast sprint finish. To tell the whole story, Hrinkov was the winner before the runner-up Karlsson.”