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Floriane Pugin wins European Champs

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French riders continue to dominate the European racing this season, with Ironhorse/Playbiker rider Floriane Pugin taking out the Elite women title at the European Champs 2009. Floriane will be stoked with the win, especially after unexpectedly beating current World Cup leader Sabrina Jonnier who crashed in her race run and finished way back in tenth. Floriane only just bettered Emmeline Ragot by half a second, when Emmeline made mistakes in her run that she couldn’t make up for. Third place went to Celine Gros and fourth to Myriam Nicole, with fifth place going to the fastest non-French rider, Emilie Siegenthaler from Switzerland.

 

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Floriane Pugin wins Euro Champs.
Photo: Tomaz Deisinger

 

The junior title also went to a French rider, Fanny Lombard, who narrowly beat Germany’s Leoni Dickeroff to take the win. Alia Marcellini of Itlay was third, with Czech rider Tereza Horka in fourth.

The race was held in Kranskja Gora, Slovenia, over the weekend, on a 3000m track with 450m of vertical drop that included a range of terrain, beginning with a tight technical section through trees and widening out near the bottom to finish close to the center of town in a spectator-friendly course. The race was attended by many of the European world cup riders, although notably Tracy Moseley wasn’t there – she’s having a bit of a rest after feeling like she’d worn herself out leading up to Fort Bill where she crashed in both seeding and race runs, more on that on her blog. Fanny Lombard and Floriane Pugin have blogs too (Fanny’s is here , Floriane’s is here and she’s already written about this race) and if you go and learn some French while reading them, statistics show this will make you ride faster.

 

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European Champs podium.
Photo: Anze Furlan

 

In the men’s, Swiss rider Nick Beer beat French riders Aurélien Giordanengo in second and Rémi Thirion in third to take the title. There was also a men’s Elite Open category for non-Euro riders, which was won by Luke Strobel of the US followed by a whole bunch of Australians and New Zealanders keeping themselves busy overseas.

Results from the official website:
Elite Women
1 Floriane PUGIN FRA 4:12.17
2 Emmeline RAGOT FRA 4:12.73
3 Céline GROS FRA 4:22.57
4 Myriam NICOLE FRA 4:26.01
5 Emilie SIEGENTHALER SUI 4:28.27
6 Fionn GRIFFITHS GBR 4:29.51
7 Miriam RUCHTI SUI 4:31.07
8 Petra BERNHARD AUT 4:34.42
9 Victoria HERNANDEZ ESP 4:38.87
10 Sabrina JONNIER FRA 4:52.71
11 Elisa CANEPA ITA 4:53.90
12 BERGLUND Elin SWE 5:01.25
13 Katarina TOTHOVA CZE 5:05.95
14 Katarina PIALOVA SVK 5:08.35
15 Rebeka BARLIC SLO 5:10.98
16 Radovana SLIZIKOVA SVK 5:14.16
17 Helena BOSKOVA SVK 5:23.85
18 Dubravka DRUZETA CRO 5:26.42
19 Birgit BRAUMANN AUT 5:56.78

Junior Women
1 Fanny LOMBARD FRA 4:48.24
2 Leoni DICKERHOFF GER 4:49.95 1.71
3 Alia MARCELLINI ITA 4:59.25 11.01
4 Tereza HORKA CZE 6:27.20