Austrian Yana Dobnig (RLM Mondraker Racing Team) in women’s and Slovenian Vid Peršak (Team Dorrong) are winners of 2017 Enduro Cerkno, third round of SloEnduro series. Peršak is strong in overall lead after three victories while Yana got very close to the leader Petra Bernhard who skipped the race to take part in the European downhill championships.
110 riders from 8 countries raced in five special stages on the trails inside and around the Cerkno bike park and ski resort on a sunny Sunday after the short Saturday night prologue stage in downtown Cerkno. Dobnig and another Austrian Kevin Maderegger (Ghost Factory Racing Riot) were fastest in the prologue but the differences were small and the racing started almost from zero on Sunday. Vid took the lead after stage one and increased his lead after the long stages 3 and 4. In the end he won with a gap of over 40 seconds over the second placed Maderegger.
Peršak was the only one with race time under 22 minutes and he celebrated his third consecutive victory in
Cerkno. Two riders were tied up in third place – the young Czech Petr Maly (Maloch Racing Team) and the experienced Austrian Matthias Stonig. Another Austrian Gerd Skant (Team Dorrong) finished in fifth place and defended his second place in the series standings.
Yana also dominated the day and won with over a minute over the second placed Italian Giulia Albanese (UC Caprivesi), Slovenian Ana Zupan (Energijateam.com) finished third.
Yana Dobnig:
It was a hard race because of the long stages but I managed to have flowy runs without mistakes. In the end it was a perfect race for me.
Vid, who missed the EWS race in Ireland due to his studies, explained:
I didn’t make too many mistakes, I had a good race. I can only wish for races like this – I liked the trails, the dirt is similar to my home trails, and my bike worked perfectly. A great weekend.
Yana and Vid were also fastest in the Kenda SuperStage, the fourth stage of the day.
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The organizers from Pedal Racing Team were missing their fastest man, national champion Tadej Razpet who crashed in training on Friday and was not able to race. But they were happy to see their youngster Aljaž Bogataj on top of the junior podium in front of Austrian Philipp Freudenberg (Radlager) and Italian Davide De Sabbata (ASD Team Granzon).
Slovenian Sebastjan Stres (Kamplc Racing Team) won the Master 1 category from Austrian Bernd Dorrong (Team Dorrong) and Hungarian Daniel Nemes (FRO Racing). In Master 2 the victory went to Slovak Peter Drabik (Kaktus bike) from Austrian Cri Maierhof (Team Dorrong) and Slovenian Robert Kordež (Black Hole Enduro Team). And the hobi class: Slovenian Dušan Oblak (Servis Oblak) won in front of two Austrians Tino Huber and Paolo Parth (RLM Mondraker).
Gate to EWS
For the first time Enduro Cerkno was also an Enduro World Series Qualifier event. The riders climbed around 1300 vertical meters on their bikes and did no less than 2600 vertical meters of descents – the difference is due to four uplifts on the chairlift. It was a real endurance event and the organizers could be going for another “best event of the year” title at the end of the season, they took it in 2015 and 2016.
Round four of SloEnduro series will be the Black Hole Enduro in Koroška on July 28th and 29th.
Links
SloEnduro website: sloenduro.com
SloEnduro Facebook: facebook.com/sloenduro
SloEnduro YouTube channel: youtube.com
SloEnduro Twitter: @sloenduro
#SloEnduro
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Photos: Ma_Tej