Successful weekend for our cyclocross riders in Hungary
Almost all CT BB riders raced in the near-by Hungarian SuperCross Cup in Salgotarjan, a Banská Bystrica twin city, over the weekend. It was the 4th race of their series. Only the injured and unwell Bátora, Zrelica and Longauer were absent this time.
After the good results our female part of the team attained in the preliminary SuperCross Cup series where they succeeded in gaining 2nd and 3rd place, we hoped for a victory this time. Zuzana Vojtášová was fighting hard until the very finish with Eszter Dosza, the current Hungarian Champion in Cyclocross, but lost again by only few seconds. Lívia Hanesová didn’t make it to the podium this time, she finished 5th, partly also due to technical problems during the race.
“I had a really bad start, I was blocked by other slow-starting riders, I didn’t have time to take all of them over during the first lap as there were really narrow parts in the circuit slowing riders down if riding in groups. The small time gap I got on Eszter in the first lap caused by my unlucky start was actually the time difference I kept till the finish line. We rode the other laps with identical times, I was neither getting closer, nor getting dropped from her. We are about on the same performance level, that’s why I like to race with Eszter, there’s always lots of fun and drama at the same time until the end of race.” – reviewed Zuzana after the finish.
“I really should work on improving my starts – again this time I had a bad position when entering the narrowed unpaved part due to my slow start. I also had problems with my chain today – it fell twice in a short, fast descent, I lost lots of precious time by putting it back on and that cost me the podium as well. But I do enjoy racing in Hungary. This is my second time here and I like the bigger number of women in a race, it makes the race more interesting and challenging.” Were Lívia’s words after the race
We had 4 men in the Elite man category – Haring, Glajza, Fraňo and Debnár. Just like our women, they lacked the SuperCross series points for getting a better starting position and thus all of them started from the back posts. This handicap in the midsts of 60 other riders and a very narrow technical parts cost them lots of power and time to move to front. Haring and Glajza, only thanks to their great performance level and aggresive ride reached the front group about half-way through the race. Martin Haring actually only passed the first group and straight left away. Shortly after he had a lead of 30 seconds that he kept till the finish. Hungarian rider Fejes took the runner-up position and Róbert Glajza finished 3rd. 4th Buruczky, the current Champion of Hungary in Cyclocross had no chance against the well-experienced and tactically riding Róbert Glajza. Debnár finished 9th, Fraňo 10th.
“The start was really crowded and there was no possibility to overtake anyone in the first half of the circuit since it was really narrow and technical. It took me quite some time to get to front. After I succeeded in getting in the lead, I tried to avoid any mistakes so I rode easily and only controlled my gap to the chasing group.” – said Haring after the race
“I really enjoy cyclocross races in Hungary. I finished 5th in the first SuperCross race, but that was a completely different course. This time the track was not ready to host such a huge amount of racers. The problems there were after the start in the first lap could have been avoided by choosing a wider road. I was constantly being slowed down by riders who started from front positions or riders I was overtaking in the following laps, it was difficult to get ahead of them in this type of circuit. The good part of it was that one had to train his riding skills, had to ride more attentively and more aggresively in order to succeed. Haring and Glajza are not members of the National Team by an accident, they worked their way up front pretty fast. I, along with Miro were not that assertive, but still finished in the Top 10. We could have done better presuming we were better placed on the start. I remember the circuit here in Salgotarjan is always somehow specific. One year there were tons of snow with icy-slippery dowhill sections, this time it’s a narrow single-track in the woods. But still it was a good preparation for the up-coming Championship of Slovakia.” – observed Martin Fraňo, rider and the team-manager in one person
