EWS7 Finale Ligure | First day of emotions: the leaders are Barelli and Chausson, still confident about her title. Graves is only one short step from the EWS title

It has been a thrilling opening to the seventh and last round of the Enduro World Series 2014 at Finale Ligure. The riders have enjoyed the same warm weather of the previous days and we really start to think the summer doesn’t want to leave the coast of Liguria. The level of the competition has been very high since the first meters of the Special Stage number one, with quite a few surprises turning out at the first time checks.

The presence of three different winners in the four Special Stages of today points out how much the challenge among the top riders remains balanced. At the end of the first day of competition, the times of the first ten riders are all within 23 seconds, with real chances of victory for at least five of them. Yoann Barelli (Giant Factory Off Road) has been able to make his final lunge, reaching the top of the classification with the victory in the PS 3 and 4. The second position, at only five tenths of second, goes to Fabien Barel, who has thrown the provisional leadership in the last meters of the course and who is followed by Richie Rude (Yeti Fox), the young rider from the States. Jared Graves (Yeti Fox) can manage his fourth position and at this point he starts to smell the scent of the EWS title as Damien Oton (Devinci – Alltricks) is right now in the ninth place.

The advantage of 19” on the French rider is not enough to make Graves relax: he will need to attack during the last two PS and he will need to be properly on it, avoiding any kind of mistake. Florian Nicolai (Rocky Mountain – Urge BP Team) is fifth, followed by Nico Lau (Cube Action Team) and by Jerome Clementz. Josh Carlson (Giant Factory Off Road), from Australia, is eighth while Francois Bailly-Maitre (BMC Enduro Racing Team) closes the top ten.

Check the action of the italian riders at EWS7

Solid result for Davide Sottocornola (Rocky Mountain – Cicobikes Dsb), who is the first among the Italian riders in seventeenth position, not too far from Alex Lupato (Lapierre – FRM Factory Racing) in twenty-second place.

Among the ladies, during the first day Anne Caroline Chausson (Ibis) got the full control of the race, winning all four Special Stages, dropping Tracy Moseley (Trek Factory Racing) behind at 58” and Cecile Ravanel (GT Pulse Session) at 1’12”. However, if we were already at the end of the two days of racing, such a result would not be enough for Anne Caroline to win the title, which is virtually still in Tracy’s hands. With still two PS to go, anything can happen, but it looks like the English rider is able to manage her next rivals’ results and to finish behind her direct contender with no stress.

Anneke Beerten (Specialized Racing Team), from Netherlands, can surely hope to be on the podium, while Isabeau Courdurier (Rocky Mountain – Urge BP Team) and Ines Thoma (Canyon Factory Enduro Team) are having their own battle to get the fifth position, as they are only a couple of seconds from each other. Laura Rossin (Devinci – Dream Team ) gets the best position among the Italian ladies and is eighteenth right now, closely followed by Valentina Macheda (Ibis – Life Cycle) and Chiara Pastore (SantaCruz – Cicobikes Dsb), who is twentieth in the general classification and third among the Italian.
Among the Junior riders, Adrien Dailly (Giant Trans Advance) from France is the absolute leader of the day: he won all the PS and has gained almost one minute on the other French riders, Neilo Perrin-Ganier (Focus) and Sebastien Claquin (Us Cagnes Mer Vft). There is the Italian flag on the provisional podium of the Master riders, with Stefano Migliorini (Frm Factory Racing) in front of Gianluca Bonanomi (SantaCruz – ProM) and Primoz Strancar (Orbea), who is still the EWS leader.

There are only two Special Stages to go before the end of the Enduro Final number seven, which will crown the EWS 2014 champions. Tomorrow the tension and the emotions will keep building up and they will reach a climax at the podium, straight after the finish. Then, it will be time to drag the whole MTB world into even more fun with the big final party: don’t miss it!

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