CK BB started on Tour de Slovakia
CK BB team participated in the most important domestic international race, Tour de Slovakia for a third consecutive time as a club team.
Team consisting of six riders, Čanecký, Haring, Palčák, Bátora, Zrelica and Debnár competed against 21 professional teams from all over Europe including a Morrocan national team. After a short morning prologue in the streets of Košice, riders rolled out in the afternoon for a challenging 164km couse in very bad weather conditions. Weather, along with a very bad quality of roads caused many troubles in the peloton and our riders were affected by some of the crashes and flat tires unluckily too.
One of our leaders, Marek Čanecký, had a puncture in the day`s last ascent and had to wait long time due to a very narrow road until finally a convoy of mechanical cars appeared. This was an end to his overall clasification hopes. Martin Haring, however put great effort that day and finished in a first group.
Second, more than a 200km long stage was decided only in the final kilometres. Our riders Haring and Čanecký were also in the group. Some 10km before finish a huge crash affected the race. Tens of riders found themselves lying on the ground of a narrow steel bridge leaving the others stucked before the bridge loosing more than two minutes. Unfortunatelly our riders were stuck on the bridge too.
Third – a queens` stage introduced four mountains throughout its 225km distance. Both of our best riders proved their climbing qualities. Even during the most crucial moments, in the Fačkovské sedlo climb, they stayed in the first group along with less than 20 best riders. Unfortunatelly, the first group got caught in the last descent by group of followers. Marek Čanecký put a good effort to finish in 20th place.
Due to heavy floods in our country`s capital Bratislava, the Tour had to be shortened. Fourth stage was shortened and was proclaimed as the last one. Marek Čanecký once again had a bad luck and punctured in the decisive moment of Havran climbb. Only Haring came in the first group and managed to get 32nd place in the overall classification. If there had been not that unfortunate crash in second stage, Haring could have finished in top 20 overall.
„From my point of view, Tour de Slovakia was a good race for CK BB. As the only non-professional club in the race, we were able to fight with our rivals and even despite some misfortune moments managed to beat some of the favorite teams in team classification. Haring proved his great climbing qualities but didn`t have that little bit of extra luck needed for a better result. It`s a pity that, there was no mountain top finish this year, where he could really fight for a podium. Čanecký had even more bad luck and his very last race in CK BB team was marked with lots of punctures, always in the very decisive moments. He was surely able to make it into top 20 in general classification. Bátora, Palčák and Debnár also proved good form in the race. Roman Zrelica had a bad day in the first stage, but that`s part of the sport. I have to say, that this was our best year of this race which is one of the hardest in this UCI European tour category. We had no ambition winning the stages as we don`t have any professional conditions to prepare for a victory, but the effort and results of our full-time employed riders deserve compliment,” said Martin Fraňo, the team manager.
results in section calendar of races 2013
