Moritz Milatz and Annika Langvad win cross country in Saalhausen – Cycling News
BMC Mountain Bike Team’s Moritz Milatz has won the Bundesliga-Bike Festival Saalhausen 2011, on Sunday, May 15.
The 28-year-old, Moritz took a total of 1 hour, 34 minutes and 55 seconds and easily beat Manuel Fumic of the Cannondale Factory Racing team, who was 59 seconds adrift.
Thomas Litscher of the Felt-Ötztal-X Bionic team was in third place with the difference of 1 minute and 9 seconds. Emil Lindgren of the Rabobank Giant Offroad team finished fourth, as she was 2 minutes and 6 seconds behind her competitors.
In the beginning of the race, Milatz was working together with Fumic in the front but Fumic was unable to maintain his speed. He dropped and joined the chasing group of three riders, including Fabian Giger (Rabobank-Giant), Emil Lindgren (Rabobank-Giant)
and Litscher.
On lap four of eight, Thomas Litscher broke away from the group of riders but he could not close the gap to German national Champion, Milatz.
Fumic dropped his team-mate, Giger and Lindgren in the last lap. He maintained his speed, caught Litscher and secured the second place.
After winning the stage, Milatz said, “I'm happy about the win after all the bad luck in the previous weeks, I didn't want to make it a solo so early, but suddenly Manuel was riding slower. Today everything was fine.”
Previously in 2010, he won the Outright MTB-Bundesliga and also the German Champion Cross Country. He also grabbed third place in the 2009 World cup held in Madrid.
Women’s race
In the women’s category, Annika Langvad of the Easton Rocket team won the Bundesliga-Bike Festival Saalhausen and took a total of 1 hour, 24 minutes and 21 seconds.
Maja Wloszczowska secured the second place with the difference of 42 seconds, while Mona Eiberweiser finished fourth and Hanna Klein ended her race in fifth place.
In the following four laps, Wloszczowska tried her best to catch the Danish women, but she never gained a maximum advantage of 20 seconds by the time the race entered in the final lap.
After winning the race, Langvad said, “It was my strategy today to escape early. So I can ride my own pace. It was one of my goals to win one Bundesliga race this year and I made it.”
Wloszczowska, on the other hand said, “I was afraid of this race, but now I'm satisfied with the second place. Annika was very strong.”
The German, Eiberweiser expressed her delight after making a comeback from her back-ache. This was a problem that kept her out of the competition for a long time and the cyclist was delighted to put up a good show at the event.
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