Finally! Finally good weather, finally this European Championships were kicking off for anyone who had looked forward to it – skaters, coaches, organizing team,…
The 200m Dual TT proved again that the renewed Vesmaco track can claim it’s place amongst Europe’s fastest tracks!
The 17” limit came close for Jhoan Guzman – finishing in 17”002. He claimed the European title in the senior men category, beating Duccio Marsili and Elton De Souza.
With the Vanhoutte sisters, two Belgian skaters made it to the final. Fran managed to gain two positions versus the outcome of the morning heats and took the bronze medal. Haila Brunet Alvarez won the race, Asja Varani took the silver medal.
In the youth category, Sofia Paola Chiumiento left no doubt on who is the fastest youth girl. She won in 18”907 , Andrea Rihova (19”535) and Leyre Montiel (19”588) joined her on the podium.
Louise Malu finished as 14th just outside of the final for which 12 skaters where qualified.
First time right for Fons Trekels in the youth men category who took the bronze medal in his first European Championships. France rules in this category, occupying places 1, 2 and 4 with a European title for Damien Silvestre Striegel.
In the junior ladies categories, Italy secured a gold medal through Rita De Gianni, who preceded her teammate Carola Falco and Andrea Bodeo from Spain.
Both Belgian competitors in the junior men category – Stan Beelen & Sietse Troost made it to the final. Stan ended on the 11th place, while Sietse was 6th, in 18”192. The fight for places 3 – 6 was quite close as all within 1/10 of a second. Bronze went to Italy, with Giacomo Gobbato (18”103), Silver was for Germany (Maurice Marosi – 18”057). The only Junior men who took down the 18” mark was Noé Guyomarc from France. His time of 17”901 was good for gold.
The track elimination was the long distance menu of the day.
It kicked off with the Carla Plana show! She managed to return into the peloton after an unfortunate crash, and won the race, beating the strong French block. France took the remaining podium places through Noéline Brel and Cloé Modicom. First Belgian was Amélie Ignoul, as 17th.
The Italian Giorgio Ghisio Erba did a very clever race, beating Jachym Podlipsky from the Czech Republic and Marc Sales from Spain. Belgian skaters Vik Reynaerts and Lenn Kusters were unfortunately not in the final.
The junior ladies race was dominated by a strong French team , who was in the end surprised by the strong sprint of the Dutch Sofia Schilder. With a good move in the last corner, she secured the victory before Maiwenn Julou and Lilou Tilagone. Lyssa Vansteenkiste from the organizing club finished on a nice 6th place.
Team arena Geisingen on top in the men’s race with Metodej Jilek as the victor. Czech colleague Jakub Kovarik took the silver, completing a strong team performance. Danish skater Magnus Normann Jeppesen was the happy third on the podium.
1-2-3 for a French clean sweep following an excellent team performance. Alison Bernardi was working quite hard in service of her teammates and took the silver medal. Marine Lefeuvre is the new European champion, Marie Dupuy was third.
Jorun Geerts finished as 5th, after a strong performance as first year junior!
What a race of the senior men! The Belgian team showed up very strong with Indra Médard, Bart Swings & Jason Suttels. Jason was the finisher and took the first gold for Belgium. Bart finished second, before the previous champion, Timothy Loubineaud for France. Indra finished 8th after doing definitely his part of the job in support of his teammates.