It
is always a nice surprise to go to new eurocup events specially
when a new country gets involved in our scene. After the French
founded AFTS soon the idea to organize an international footbike
event in France came in sight. Christophe Quiniou and Sébastien
Confiant took the effort and finalized the programme of the first
French eurocup e voila!
It resulted in us travelling to France on May 6, we arrived in the
morning May 7 in Lyon, La France.
Nice weather, lot's and lot's of rain on the route towards south
France, but in Lyon sunny conditions on arrival. After a 10 hour
car trip we drove in to large and beautiful Miribel Jonage Park
(located east of the city of Lyon). Sébastien welcomed us at the
reception of the sports center. We put our tents up, had quick tour
on the sports centre (from Sébastien and later Christophe) in which
they explained which buildings were reserved for the footbikers,....
a lot of space!.
Friday afternoon more footbikers arrived and a lot of tents appeared
on the field, it became a crowded international familiar mess. A
tour around the lake was organized and in the evening the French
presented a nice welcome diner. Want more does a footbiker want?
Organiser
Christophe Quiniou
(with white cap) inspects different footbikes
Considering this being the first eurocup in France a large number
of competitors appeared on the start list ; 50 and more footbikers
from several countries (France, Italy, Germany, Slovakia, Czech
Republic, Netherlands).
Saturday afternoon the eurocup opened with a 10 km race (4 rounds
of 2,4 km). The track was partly asphalt and gravel, so tricky in
sharp corners. The 10 km gave us a clear picture of all riders.
After start a leading group in which riders stuck together as glue
until 400 m before finish line. Towards finish Dutch Jasper Stringa
(team High Level van der Laan) sprinted in the lead and finished
in a time of 22:14.179. Jasper, a newcomer the IKSA scene, rides
a carbon frame footbike developed by Peter Groeneveld. In this race
he used 2 x 28 inch wheels. This combination of wheel sizes used
to be very common in early Dutch footbike races 30 years ago. And
now we see slowly more 2 x 28 inch wheeled footbikes re-appearing
in our sport.
Second after 10 km came in Italian Igor Ricci in 22:16.979 and third
Dutch Pieter-Jan Rozing in 22:17.703. Pieter-Jan surprised everybody,
because last year he was not a real fast rider, but this year he
has been training which seems to get him in to medals.
In the ladies field it was an easy play for Rosanne Reijne (Dutch
team High Level van der Laan) to win in a time of 24:33.317. At
least it looked like it was easy for her. Surprise of the weekend
was the French Carole Exbrayat who came in second in 27:39.415 .
3d became Ivana Dvorakova from Czech Republic in 27:59.687. After
the 10 a team relay took part. In which the High Level vd Laan men
team won in a time of 16:35 followed by the men of AVIS Italy in
16.46 and 3d became Dutch Selles Kamperzeedijk in 18.31. The first
women team was High Level vd Laan in 20:16. Second AVIS femine from
Italy in 21:53. After the race all got back to the base camp, took
a shower and in the evening there was a very nice dinner arranged
by the French footbikers and price ceremonies. Bravo.
Day 2 opened early, too early for me. Needed a lot of coffee to
start up. The race should have started at 9.30 but that was too
enthusiastic, so it became 10 a clock in the morning when 36 footbikers
started with 40 km race around the lake. In the men's field there
was a leading group of 8 (Jasper Stringa, Pieter-Jan Rozing, Joachim
Sternal Igor Ricci, Martin Bonder, Luc Teilles, Stephan Bouman).
A nice mix of nations with also 1 French guy. Good for the home
public.
After 4 rounds of 10 km it was again Dutch Jasper Stringa who simply
speeded up in the end and won. Well nothing is that simple, but
he seemed to be no match for the rest in an end sprint. It took
Jasper 1:42:02.904 to kick the 40 km. It was Pieter-Jan Rozing from
Netherlands Gevloerd.nl team who came in second in 1:42:24.205 and
third was Joachim Sternal from Germany. Joachim made a nasty crash
during the race but could catch up with the group and battled himself
in to the 3d position in 1:42:40.008. Nice work!
Jasper Stringa - NL team High Level van der Laan
Rosanne Reijne- NL team High Level van der Laan
In the women's field it was pretty clear from the start line. Eurocup
competition winner 2009 Rosanne Reijne was leading, looked relaxed
and kicked smiling towards her victory in 1:55:02.026. No competition
for her. So ladies please get your self in to the races and start
training to offer some competition. Second became Ivana Dvorakova
from Czech Republic in 2:07:14.564 and 3d on finish line was French
Carole Exbrayat in 2:10:24.231. In the result list you can find
the total ranking also with the veterans in it. Rosanne Reijne-
NL team High Level van der Laan After the race, price ceremony followed
and riders were invited to join the park festival and have dinner
in a large tent at the park festival.
I think we look back to a great start of the eurocup season! Timing
was done by transponder chips. And that makes it a smoothly weekend.
Printed results within 10 minutes after the finish of the last rider.
I wanne thank Christophe and Sébastien for organizing this first
eurocup weekend in France on be halve of all participants. Suberp!
We hope a lot of French join AFTS and help the organizers during
new events. Because having enough volunteers to organize events
in our sport is crucial. The French started with a very nice event
- being the first eurocup ever organized in France.
We hope we can travel to France in many years to come. And more
French start competing also in other eurocups events!
Best regards Thijza
