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Houffalize World Cup 4x - Kintner takes the win

This weekend’s Houffalize 4x World Cup 2009 took place yesterday with American and Czech riders dominating the top 5. Jill Kintner won the final, beating the two Czechs Jana Horakova (2nd) and Romana Labounkova (4th). Anneke Beerten, who is riding for Suspension Center this year, squeezed into 3rd. The small final was won by Melissa Buhl.

Olympic BMXer Jill Kintner didn’t make the final at the last round after crashing out in the semis, so she must be stoked on this win. Her blog is here, she updates regularly and should have her own point of view on the race up there pretty soon.

Every woman rider who enterred the qualifiers got to race, with the 24 riders starting the first heats racing in groups of 3. This made for more heats than usual, and I’m sure many of the guys were jealous – their field was cut from 200 entrants to just 64 after quals. The track was described as favouring those with good technical skill, and allowed a few more opportunities to pass than last month’s Pietermaritzburg track. Nevertheless, the qualifying times were a close match to the final results.

The course featured a range of jumps and drops, with top qualifying runs being around 50 seconds for the women. Check out the UCI’s diagram of the 4x track. Looks fun:

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Here are the full results, from the UCI website.

2009 UCI 4X World Cup Round 2 – Houffalize
1 Jill KINTNER USA
2 Jana HORAKOVA CZE
3 Anneke BEERTEN NED
4 Romana LABOUNKOVA CZE
5 BUHL Melissa USA
6 Anita MOLCIK AUT
7 Emmeline RAGOT FRA
8 Lucia OETJEN SUI
9 Diana MARGGRAFF ECU
10 Joanna PETTERSON RSA
11 Fionn GRIFFITHS GBR
12 Helene Valerie FRUHWIRTH AUT
13 Mio SUEMASA JPN
14 Katarina TOTHOVA CZE
15 Steffi MARTH GER
16 Rachel SEYDOUX SUI
17 Sarsha HUNTINGTON AUS
18 HOHENWARTER Angelika AUT
19 Marielle JONKER NED
20 Eva CASTRO FERNANDEZ ESP
21 Tereza VOTAVOVA CZE
22 Elfriede LEHMANN GER
23 Stephanie TELTSCHER GER
24 Neza KNEZ SLO