Great weekend for our athletes this weekend, several top10 performances in multiple cycling races this weekend. Not 1 of our riders didn’t play a role in front of the races! Coming out of the winter in shape and week by week they are racing with a very offensive style!

Yesterday it was Daniel (One of Roumania’s promissing cyclists) who, after a winter of hard working in difficult weather conditions from time to time and a hard training camp a few weeks ago, who won the race in Kilkis (Greece) after a breakaway which he set up in the last climb to finish solo….and take win + GC lead.

Daniel on his way to victory in stage 1

Today was very important for him, because he could win his first ever stage race, and begin his season with a super feeling!
He found himself in the lead pack and was even capable of sprinting for victory again! 2nd…and of course the most important of all is the win in this stage race!
Also important is that it’s obvious this win is already opening new doors for this young rider and we are glad to soon see him at the starting line at some interesting races!

Winning this stage race was opening the season with a deam, well done!

In Belgium the national championships offroadduathlon were held in Retie.
Inge (women), Tony and Wim DC (men) were ready to rumble…despite the migraine attack in the 2nd half of this week and Wim twisting his ankle past sunday. Little annoying things an athlete can miss…but there’s always a way to overcome these small issues, and that’s by being strong between your ears!
Both proove they were/are!

In the female race Inge slightly missed her running start and was set on chasing the other female athletes! Aged 42 she was today in full battle with the younger girls and (former) PRO triathlete Adam. But a fighter as she is she was capable of putting a big step forward on the bike during this race and come off the bike in battle for the medals.
With a good off bike run Inge takes silver overall and silver (AG) behind Adam today!

Inge 2nd on the nationals Xduathlon

The male race was full of specialists in this specific part of triathlon/duathlon, but with the defending national champion on the road in masters category (Wim) and Tony (multi talented athlete in all sports and heading to Chtriman 2018 and the Ironman World champs in Hawaii in October) our athletes are not to underestimate!
Tony had a fantastic start, but had to admit after the race he blew up his legs a bit there by passing the 1K mark at 3’04/km.

Tony in full attempt to move up on the bike!

This made him drop a few places during the first run, but with some good breathing on the bike his body got full of energy for the last part of the race and on the bike he moved up before putting his bike down in T2 and have a good off bike run towards 14th place today!

Heading towards 14th place in the championships

Wim, who had his eyes focussed on the masters race, came into T1 just shortly behind Tony. With a consistend bikesplit in which he didn’t lose any spots and could maintain his 2nd place in the race he was ready to take this silver medal in a racing format in which he had to dare his black beast. That black beast is called: technical MTB-skills, he dared himself with success!

1year ago Wim had 0 championships medals, now he won Gold, silver and bronze in all duathlon disciplines and became vice world champion on the long distance…top athlete!

Next weeks our cyclists will be racing races around Europe and Asia, our triathletes will put away the MTB and get out there TT-bikes! With in particular the African continental champs, the North American championships and Ironman Lanzarote as first big international races!

Train smart, Perform better!
Jesse