2024-05-13 14:06:33
Mārtiņš Blūms started from the first starting row with the very high fourth starting number. In total, 48 athletes went to the start and completed ten laps. The race took place on a very muddy track, which required a great deal of vigilance and technical skills from the riders. Five minutes before the start, it was raining so hard that the judges tried their best to reduce the huge puddles in the starting corridor. At one point it also started to snow for a while.
Mārtiņš left the start in the middle of the leaders, being in fifth place at the first checkpoint. The student of coach Jānis Mūsin finished the first lap in the eighth position, 8 seconds behind the then leader Charlie Aldridge from Great Britain. In the continuation, the leading position was taken over by the Dane Simons Andreasen, who won the XCC cross-country race. The cyclist who won the previous stage of the World Cup already had a 30-second advantage after the second lap. On the third lap, Andreasen suffered a technical problem that dropped him to the bottom of the top ten, more than 40 seconds behind the leaders.
Meanwhile, Mārtiņš Blūms retreated towards the end of the second ten. The third lap was finished in 18th place, 1 minute and 27 seconds behind the leader. Blum went on to overtake Belgian Pierre De Froidmont and Spanish Joffrey Culella, moving up to 17th place after the sixth lap.
In the meantime, the Italian athlete Simone Avondetto took the solo lead, while Andreasen rose to second place. In the sixth lap, the two were separated by 55 seconds. Nothing changed among the leaders in the final lap. Avondetto won and became the European champion, who spent 1 hour 14 minutes and 57 seconds on the track. Second place and silver medal for Danish Andreasen (+00:00:49). Meanwhile, Germany’s Julian Schelb secured the third place in the final laps.
Mārtiņš Blūms performed the last lap perfectly. In it, he not only broke away from Culella, but also caught up and overtook another Spanish cyclist, David Kampus. At the finish, he finished 16th, 3 minutes and 58 seconds behind the winner. It should be noted that the harsh weather conditions made this competition very specific.
2024-05-13 14:06:33