Women taking part in Gracia Orlova UCI cycling race
Our two female riders, Zuzana Vojtášová and Lívia Hanesová, took part in a UCI 2.2 stage race in a nearby Czech city of Orlová. Race was held on April 24-28.
Despite the colliding dates with a UCI 2.1 Festival Luxembourgeois du cyclisme dominated by the omnipresent Marianne Vos, some 149 riders in 26 teams took part in the competition. It was Marianne Vos who won Gracia Orlova couple years ago, this year the race was all reined by american team Specialized Lululemon. Only few individual riders, namely from Polish and Russian national teams, from the Italian Faren and Swiss Bigla were a real threat to the Specialized team. For those who are unaware of the history of the golden ages of Slovak female cycling, Slovak rider Ildiko Pacszová won this race during the golden back in 1991.
Race consisted of a prologue and 5 demanding hilly and mountainous stages. Riders covered a total distance of 400km, some 50km more than during the previous year's editions due to one stage added. The average speed of the winner amounted to almost 36,5km/h. Only 70% of the riders finished all stages of the race and were classified in the overall standing.
Our two riders completed a MIX team CK Epic Dohňany. Two riders from this host team were present, Monika Kadlecová and a young, promising Katarína Miškovská and two riders from Hungary, Kornélia Epres and the London Olympic in MTB participant, Barbara Benko were the remaining members of the team. Logistics and all organization was secured by the DS Mr.Velitz from CK Epic Dohňany. The aim of all Slovak riders was only to finish the race and gain some international experience in a peloton of the top athletes of the sport.
In the end, only Barbara Benko and Zuzana Vojtášová made it to the last general classification. Despite finishing the last stage, Lívia Hanesová along with Monika Kadlecová were classified over the time limit and Katarína Miškovská and Kornélia Epres were out of the race even sooner in the race. It definitelly was a good experience for young Katarína who is a second year junior this year. Young cyclists aspire to take part in races such as this one, so giving them a chance to do so and showing them it is possible to race along the best ones in the sport is highly challenging for them. Hopefully there will soon be time when a qualification for a young national team will have to be made, that the field of cyclists will be so big. Situation in the women field was much alike in Czech republic couple years ago. Now they managed to bring two full teams, two other women were part of their respective teams (K. Hranaiová in swiss Bigla, M.Rúžičková in italian Pasta Zara) and some other great riders were absent due to illness (the speed-skater M.Sábliková, P.Havlíková from Fidea team).
“Unfortunally we haven't trained much over the weeks prior to the race due to a participation in a men's race Tour de Maroc. If the lack of training was not so big, I believe we would have finished all days in the main field. But I do hope we make a team again either for the other czech UCI 2.2 race Tour de Feminin or some other stage race as it is a great preparation for our National Championships and also for the upcoming cyclocross season that starts in couple months. Our first top of the cyclocross season is already in mid-November, the European Championships in czech Mladá Boleslav,“ said Zuzana about the race.
Lívia Hanesová adds her view of the race: „It was my first big race in a 100% female peloton. I was there mostly to learn and to get some good quality racing kilometers in my legs. I had no idea a new experience awaited me in the very beginning of the first stage where I got involved in a mass crash. I had this block that I could not get out of my head for the rest of the race. From then on I always tried to preserve the last position of the bunch what cost me a lot of energy to take over all the girls dropping out of the race. I didn't have enough energy to finish the last stage in the time limit because of this, I'm really sorry about the crash, I believe the race would have evolved in a completely different way if I was not involved in it. I'm not saying I would have made a good result, but I would gain much more experience up in front. I know I cannot compete the pros in the lead.”
photos: courtesy of Pavel Žižka, Ivan Ondrišík
complete race photo gallery: http://www.roadcycling.cz/
TV report (min. 26:53):
