Slovak MASTERS ROAD CUP 2012
Masters road cup 2012 finished only few days ago.
It is a series not only for Masters, but also for Men B (non-professional) and Women. Series was supposed to comprise 20 races, but two races were cancelled – Sabinov (due to a date collision with the National Road Championship of Elite Men and Women) and Moravské Lieskové. So the Merida Road Cup consisted of 17 races of which 11 were road races, 5 time trials and 1 criterium.We had M.Haring, M.Fraňo, R.Zrelica, I.Viglaský, L.Bátora and P.Bartoň representing us in the Men B category. Their results at the National Road Championship Elite were also taken into consideration for the general classment in the series.
Since our Elite Men team raced mostly abroad and also participated at numerous different races both at home and abroad, they didn’t take part in the Merida Road Cup consistently. To mention just a few of the races that prevented our riders from participating in the Merida Masters Road Cup, it was more world cups of C2 cat. and World Championship XC in mountainbikes and different road races such as Tour de Cameroun, Challenge de Prince Maroc, Tour de Loiret France, Tour the Slovakia, Sibiu Tour and Tour de Szekerland (both Romania), Tour de Guyane, Tour the Himalayas Pakistan, Grand Prix Chantal Biya Cameroon etc. Viglaský participated in the series 8 times, Fraňo 7 times, Zrelica 6 times, Bátora and Haring 4 times each. It means each of our team members participated in only about 1/3 of the races, and thus could not reach on the top 3 placings in the General Classification of the series. Everytime they did come to Merida Road Cup though, they reached for podium placings and victories, when Haring and Fraňo won twice each, Zrelica and Viglaský, both won once. There victories represents 6 victories out of the 17 races.
the Elite Womens category Lívia Hanesová finished 2nd overall, Zuzana Vojtášová 5th. Lívia participated 7 times and won the women’s category 3 times.Also our masters riders Malachovský, Kán and Haas participated in some races in the Masters B category. Since their priority throughout the season were MTB marathons, they didn’t achieve any good placing in the overall classification of the Masters Road Cup.
Our biggest start both in terms of appearance and in terms of results in the Merida Road Cup was definitelly Ladislav Longauer. After his clear victory in Masters D in the previous year, he decided he needed some extra challenge and thus participated in Masters C races with 10-years younger riders than himself. Despite his age handicap, he obtained some good results. He finished 2nd in the General Classification, he won one road race and got a bronze medal at the National Championship Time Trial. “After my last year’s easy victory in Masters D, Martin Fraňo persuaded me to race with the younger age category. Racing with some 10years younger riders is much faster, longer and both the level and number of riders is higher. I’m glad I took this challenge. I literally had to fight each and every race for a good placing. I’m happy my steady results have brought me a 2nd place in the Overall Classification. Javorka was definitelly the strongest rider of our peloton this year, I didn’t succeed in beating him in a race. I also had to get used to not being on the top step of the podium each weekend, that is only last-years history. But I proved everyone it is possible to race with younger ones. It also improved my preparation for the World Championship and European Championship – I managed to get my best result, I finished 5th in a bunch sprint for the gold medal. I also hope to ride at least at this level next year as well. I retired last year, so I have much more time for training these days. A season with over 20.000km in my legs and racing with younger riders improved my performance level, I truly hope I will be able to win a gold medal in the World Champs in St.Johann next year. That is something I really long for and I’ve been too close this year to let this goal go.” said Ladislav Longauer about this year’s season.Besides Longauer, also Lívia Hanesová obtained bronze medal from the National Championship (organized as a joint Championship of Czecho-Slovakia) in Road and also in MTB marathon and up-hill time trial.
“Merida Road Cup was not a priority to our team. There’s plenty of other races all over the world in various disciplines. We participated in the series only when we had time – some 5-6 times throughout the season. Because of this, we could not have ambitions to finish in top 3 in the Overall Classification. However,we do consider taking part – and eventually win - in these races whenever possible as kind of our responsibility. We succeeded in winning 6 out of the 17 races. Merida Road Cup is a really good series of races, it acts as perfect race preparation for more important races and also can act as a ‘school’ of cycling in terms of trying different tactiques applicable later in other races. So we definitelly do want to participate in these races whenever possible also in the upcoming years. Each year we race outside of the country at least once in a month plus sometimes even the dates of races in our National calendar (masters/men B vs. elite, MTB races) concur, so it is not possible to take part in every singe race. But I do regard these races as a big contribution to increasing our performance level, so we do plan to participate whenever possible also next year and profit from this preparation in more important races.” were impressions of Martin Fraňo.
CT BB finished 5th (1.859 points) in the Overall Team Classification. Winning team CK Falange obtained 4.872 points throughout the season. These results as well reflect our sporadical attendance to the series. Our team also sponsored one race of the series, the last race of the Merida Road Cup, an uphill time trial to near-by hill Šachtičky. We also hosted the final evaluation of the Cup.
