Race Report: iXS European Cup #6 Leogang

Slawomir Lukasik and Veronika Widmann dominated the field of 300 riders from 24 different nations in an incredibly exciting last round of the European series this weekend and took this year’s title as the iXS European Downhill Champions 2016.

Leogang has been a part of the iXS European Downhill Cup right from the start of the series and, hence, played host for the EDC already for the ninth time this season. The bike park belongs to the favorite downhill spots of many riders, which is why the races in Leogang are typically extremely crowded and lure especially the downhill elite to the European series and the World Cup. This year’s season final was again celebrated as a part of the Biketember festival, along with the Specialized-SRAM Enduro Series, the Scott Junior Trophy und a C1 XCO race, resulting in a weekend full of mountain bike action and inviting hundreds of great athletes!

At the World Cup in June we already learnt that Leogang’s track is far from easy even for the pros, especially under rather wet circumstances. However, it has been slightly modified again since then, providing the riders with quite another challenge this weekend. Similar to last year, summer decided to turn its back on Europe just in time for the Biketember festival, leaving the riders with rainfall and low temperatures after a week full of sunshine. While most riders arrived under a bright and shining sun sometime during last week, the weekend greeted the bike park with loads of water, turning the track into a real mud bath in combination with some wicked roots and stones underneath – hence, nearly no one made it down the hill during the training dry and without a crash.

As usual Saturday’s seeding set the stage for the upcoming finals on Sunday by determining not only the start order, but also the participants of the Super Final. In addition, also the seeding brought some valuable last points for the rankings before the finals. At the end of the day Slawomir Lukasik (POL - NS Bikes FroPro) and Carina Cappellari (SUI - Radon Magura Factory Team) delivered the best times of the day in their respective categories.

The current leaders of the rankings Johannes Fischbach (GER - Radon Magura Factory Team) and Veronika Widmann (ITA - Bike Club Egna Neumarkt) were left in third and fourth places. While Fischbach seemed to be on top at the beginning, he crashed in the final passage which reduced his lead in the rankings significantly. After such a result in the seeding and with everything in the Elite rankings still open, the stage could not have been set better for an exciting final round of the EDC on Sunday!

In the meantime, Max Hartenstern (GER - MTB Bande Schatzki) and Valentina Höll (AUT - YT Industries) did not seem to care about these rather bad conditions at all – which might be due to the fact that they already took the title early and had nothing to lose in the finals. Max Hartenstern, who also currently holds the title of European Champion of the U19, still delivered a time that would have brought him the podium in the Elite Men and once more demonstrated is skills and the bright future of his downhill career ahead. Vali Höll also decided to prove her skills and delivered the best time of all female starters, including the Elite Women – quite an achievement at 14!

Fortunately, the weather was better on Sunday and the rain finally stopped, even if the track was still far from dry. Unfortunately, while the track got drier, the mud got thicker and made it even more difficult to deliver a fast result, which became clear as soon as the first riders started down the hill.

In the Masters category Christian Junker (GER - Rose Factory Racing Team), succeeded with a 6-second lead towards seeding run fastest Rostislav Stencel (CZE - Bikeplac Racing Team), while Rowan Sorrell (GBR - Bikepark Wales) took the third place. Frank Hedwig (GER - Rad-Art), on the other hand, really did not get lucky this weekend and ended up in 11th place and even lost his third place in the rankings last minute.

In the U17 female category, Vali Höll repeated her success from the seeding and set a time of 5:06.631 minutes with an incredible gap of 43 seconds towards the second place, which made it a worthy final run to celebrate her title.

The next category down the hill was the U17 Youth. While Giacomo Masiero (ITA - 3 Stars) set the best time this weekend, Marcel Merkeli (GER - Solid National Racing) finished in second and missed the first place by only split seconds. However, his lead in the rankings was still big enough and brought him the title 2016 anyway. Congrats!

In the U19 category Max Hartenstern was already crowned as this year’s winner before the race had even started. His strongest competitor and the only one who could have altered this result would have been Moritz Ribarich (AUT - Swiss Downhill Syndicate), who had to cancel EDC #6 due to injuries following from a crash at the World Championships in Val di Sole. Nevertheless, Hartenstern delivered quite a performance and set the best time of 4:02.621 minutes, while Joe Breeden (GBR - Solid Reverse Factory Racing) and Janis Lehmann (SUI) completed the podium.

For Italian Champion Veronika Widmann the season ended exactly as it started: with success. She dominated the Elite Women category setting the best time of 4:43.547 minutes. With this result she not only was the fastest female rider of the day, but also took the title of the EDC 2016 in the overall rankings. Eleonora Farina (ITA - GB Rifar Mondraker) finished in second place, followed by Carina Cappellari in third. In the rankings Leogang’s result brought Cappellari the second place, while Jana Bartova (CZE - RRP) had to settle with the third place this season.

As the women already had suggested, the results in the Elite Men Super Final were noticeably faster than on Saturday. After only four riders made it past the 4-minute mark on Saturday, this still somehow seemed to be the magic line on Sunday as well. The first rider to achieve this goal was Loris Revelli (ITA - Argentina Bike De Vinci) with an incredible result of 3:54.056 minutes. Up to this point, only Lukasik had delivered a faster time in his seeding and the Junior World Cup Champion really surprised the crowd when one rider after the other failed to reach his result. Even Lutz Weber (SUI - Swiss Downhill Syndicate) who seemed to beat him at first did not manage to maintain the lead up to the finish line. After that somehow all eyes seemed to be on Fischbach, the leader of the rankings, and Lukasik, who had been the fastest rider of the seeding. When Fischbach crossed the finish line in fourth and not even Faustin Figaret (FRA - Radon Magura Factory Racing) reached Revelli’s time, the stage was finally set for Slawomir Lukasik – and he totally nailed it! With the weekend’s best time of only 3:48.839 minutes, he took both the title of the day and the crown as EDC champion 2016!

Another downhill season comes to an end and another year of downhill action is in the books. For now, all participants are headed towards the off-season for a well-deserved rest. Let’s all take some time to sit back and relax – just take it as the calm before the storm: next year we are officially celebrating the tenth anniversary of the iXS European Downhill Cup at the best tracks of Europe. So be prepared and ride on! For more information, visit www.ixsdownhillcup.com.