XCO National Championships

Last weekend, on the 17th of July The Mountainbike National Championships took place, at Paltinis, after 4 years when they were at Izvorul Muresului. In the same weekend, on the 16th of July, DHS Corvin Marathon was held at Hunedoara. Even if I was tempted by the prizes announced at DHS where I think I had some chances at the podium, I choosed to go only to Paltinis, because you not often meet with such a technical XCO track, especially at the XCO National Championships.

Friday afternoon, a bit in a hurry after work, I left Cluj with my team mates. We arrived at Paltinis at evening, at a chalet and the next day, Saturday we did a few laps on the track and also some pictures, reliving memories of the 2007 National Championships and Balkan Championships… Luckily the storm that passed through Rasinari and Sibiu didn’t come to Paltinis, so the track was still dry and loose and I could only hope the weather will remain the same on Sunday. The track is 5 km long with 200 m total climb and we had to go five rounds in the competition plus startloop at the beginning. You can see the map of the track and download the gps track from Connect.Garmin or BikeMap.

Sunday, after the amateur, junior and girls races and a half an hour rain, we started the race at 13 o’Clock.

I didn’t started too hard, to keep myself fresh for the first downhill parts. On the lowest part of the track I was the 10th out of 15 riders. Where the climbing part started I overtook Robert from Geiger, and after the first flat zone I overtook my team mate Tudor.

By the end of the climbing part, they both overtook me … Tudor came first in the downhill, then Robi and me. Although Tudor is better than me at downhill parts, I lost more time here because Robert was slower than me, especially on the first downhill part, toward the point of minimum altitude of the track. So I lost important seconds behind my team mate who was the only marker in front of the first two laps. I overtook Fabian (from Geiger) and the last two laps I got close to 10 sec. to Rosioru which gave clear signs of exhaustion after the day before he took part at the DHS Corvin Marathon. But I was not strong enough on climbing to reach or overtook him especially since losing 3-4 seconds at downhill parts, so I finished 7th as Elite Men and on the 8th place overall (Elite + U23 ).

My team mate Radu Tudor went better and better as we approach the end of the race, so after the last climb he overtook Juganaru and finished 4th as Elite (5th overall) and came closer to Stancu of Dinamo who win the U23 despite the fact that it has much more experience on the road than MTB. Vlad Sabau finished on the 10th place.

It was a great championship, a technical and spectacular track that everyone missed (I think) and even though I was nervous before the start, more because of the track but because of competition (as here competing with yourself first), everything was ok and even I felt good, better than at the Balkans in 2007 even though I was not climbing as strong as I would have liked. Congratulations for Tudy for another title but also for organizing this race, and to Petrache and Logigan who fill the other two steps of the podium.
After five consecutive weekends of competitions my next two weekends are off, during which I will prepare for August, another month full of competitions: the 6th of August. Banat Marathon, the 15th of August. Crater XCO, the 21st of August . Geiger Marathon and the 27th of August. Uphill Sinaia.