What a difference compared to the first stage of the 11th GORE-TEX® TRANSALPINE-RUN. Who, after the first day, thought that the Andorrans Oscar and Marc would be lagging behind this year was definitely proven wrong on the second stage. They had lost 11 minutes on the 35 km long first stage from Oberstdorf to Lech, but they already regained 4:44 minutes on the second one from Lech to St. Anton am Arlberg. “We are really more than happy about our success today. It is like a dream for us”, said the brothers in unison after they had finished their race, “that was a route made for us today, technically demanding, up and down again and again and only about 25 km long”. The two Sky-Run specialists from the small mountain village El Tarter (1700m) in Andorra started to make the pace right from the beginning and started their first attack on the first climb up to the Rüfikopf summit station at 2350 m above sea level. Especially Oscar Casal seemed to have recovered from the disaster of the day before when he had to cope with cramps on the last section and had a hard time to even reach the finish line.
And the leaders Daniel Jung/Ivan Paulmichl let the Casals get away with it. They followed their own rhythm instead and maybe also had the 6 upcoming stages until the overall finish in Sulden am Ortler in mind. “We are not sad at all. That was pure trail running today; gorgeous landscape and ideal conditions and the two guys from Andorra absolutely deserved to win today”, applauded Jung and acknowledged the great performance of his competitors. However, Jung/Paulmichl seemed absolutely composed in the light of their time loss of almost 5 minutes which, during the race, had even grown to 7 minutes. After having crossed the 2543 m high Valfagerjoch, Jung/Paulmichl stepped up the pace on the downhill passage to St. Anton (1284 m) and thus regained more than two minutes.
“It was the ideal terrain for the brothers, there were many climbs and descents, and with 25 km the route was shorter than normally”, said Ivan Paulmichl extremely relaxed in view of the upcoming tasks with stages that will be over 45 km long.
Maybe Jung/Paulmichl were not completely focused again yet after their victory on the day before. “I slipped in a small creek – at the latest from that on, I was definitely awake” smiles the South Tyrolean, “but such a situation shows you once more that you have to concentrate and focus yourself any second. Only one wrong step can mean the end of the race for you.”
The two Germans Lukas Nagele/Benjamin Sperl (Freiburg/Kassel) left a strong impression on the second day as they came in third in St. Anton and regained time in the overall ranking. “We both like technically demanding terrain and we both had good legs today” explains Benjamin Sperl from Kassel also on behalf of his team partner Nagele.
Whereas everything is still possible in the men’s category, the two Scottish ladies Claire Gordon and Helen Bonsor dominated the women’s field again and also won the second stage with a comfortable lead. The two Scots should be experienced enough to not suffer from a physical collapse over the next days, but for the Dutch-Spanish Mixed team Ragna Debats/ Pere Bove Aurell the GORE-TEX® TRANSALPINE-RUN is completely uncharted territory. After another great performance today (rank 8 in the overall daily standings), the also personally closely associated team just enjoyed the moment. “Maybe we will run out of power during the upcoming stages, we just don’t know”, says Ragna Debats who started her sportive career as a dressage rider in Warendorf in the region Muensterland. Behind Debats/Aurell, the situation in the category “Mixed” is pretty turbulent. The current second place team Landie and Christiaan Greyling (Southafrica) as well as the German team Kathrin Schichtl/Michael Arend had quite some problems. Instead, the highly rated Tim Wortmann/Anne Marie Flammersfeld seemed to have overcome their phase of weakness of the first stage and came in fifth today (overall daily standings).
Also Andreas Mikkelsen and his partner Andres Bidne showed a lot of stamina today. The Norwegian rally pilot who starts for Volkswagen motor sports in the WRC series and his team partner crossed the finish line in St. Anton after 6:47,40 h.
Daily Results:
Men
1. Oscar Casal/Marc Casal (3:06.08 h)
2. Daniel Jung/Ivan Paulmichl (3:10.52 h)
3. Benjamin Sperl/Lukas Nägele (3:18.10 h)
Women
1. Helen Bonsor/Clair Gordon (3:44.49 h)
2. Brandy Erholtz/Christine Lundy (4:00.42 h)
3. Caroline Freslon-Bette/Maud Gobert (4:02.01 h)
Master Men
1. Urs Jenzer/Ruedi Bärtschi (3:21.28,6 h)
2. Tamas Karlowits-Juhasz/Csaba Németh (3:24.52 h)
3. Anton Steiner/Thomas Hellvigl (3:30.40 h)
Senior Master Men
1. Jörg Schreiber/Thomas Miksch (3:44.49 h)
2. Oswald Wenin/Richard Wenin (3:45.20 h)
3. Urs Salzmann /Beat Schertenleib (4:17.23 h)
Mixed
1. Ragna Debats/Pere Bove Aurell (3:32.27 h)
2. Jasmin Paris/Konrad Rawlik (3:42.31 h)
3. Ander Cangas/Sonja Requeiro (3:45.06 h)
Master Mixed
1. Stephan Tassani-Prell/Cäcilia Schreyer (3:42.25 h)
2. Annemarie Gross/Franz Kröss (3:42.45 h)
3. Annelise Felderer/Markus Planötscher (3:44.36 h).
Further info: GORE-TEX® TRANSALPINE-RUN
