| Wichman wins UCI race in Szczawno Zdroj - Poland |
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After a disappointing week in South Africa, where I got 13th in the first race of the season, it was time to reset and get ready for the next race. Together with Kevin alias “Leo” van Benthem and Daniel Prijkel, we drove to Poland on Friday. For Kevin it was the first 4-cross race ever! This was the 3th time I was attending the Festina Night Race in Poland. The last 2 editions I won over Brian Lopes, so the expectations where high. When we arrived in Szczawno Zdroj, the city was full with flyers of the 4X Night Race. It was cool to see that my name and picture were on the flyer. The organizer did a great job promoting the event. He invited some top 10 World Cup riders such as Saladini from France, Tatarkovic from Czech and Fischbach from Germany, he arranged 2 hour TV coverage on national TV and had invited a lot of action sports magazines. With over 80 riders and over 5000 spectators I think the organizer can be satisfied. Saterday in the afternoon we had the qualification run. I ended up in first position, in front of Saladini. Daniel got the 21th place and Leo ended up in 26th. At 8.30 PM the finales started. I cruised pretty easy through all my finals. Daniel didn’t made it through the 1/8 finale, and Leo’s party was over in the ¼ finals, not bad for a first race. At 10 PM the main finale was on. The athmosphere was super, crazy crowd, loud music and fireworks. They know how to put on a great show in Poland. As the fastest qualifier I had first linepick, next to me was Fischbach and in lane 3 was Saladini. When the gate dropped I was in front, but made a small mistake on the first rythm section, which gave Saladini the chance the get a little bit in front of me. Going bar to bar into the first turn I had the inside line and got out of the turn in 1st position. In the 2nd turn Saladini tried to make a move on me but this didn’t work out for him. Results: Andrey once again thank you for having me on this race! Cheers |
