My blog is mostly dedicated for uci rated races, at least for now, but once in a while i will try to post some brief reviews of smaller races all around the world. Mostly to drop in some names that may later perform in the biggest junior races. So here we go....
A week ago we had a decent stage race held in Germany, the 39th edtition of Internationale Cottbuser Junioren that consisted frour stages with time trial on the schedule. On the startlist can be found riders from Germany mostly but with some foreingers from Poland and Czech Republic. The first stage, finished with a bunch sprint, won Louis Rohde who took 10 seconds bonifications on the finish line and another three from sprint bonus. The day after we had two stages: time trial and road stage. The 11km long TT won Lennard Kämna with an impressive speed of 49 kp/h! Rohde lost over a minute and the leaders jersey of course. Manuel Porzner won the second part of stage two with another bunch sprint. The final queen stage won Kämna again which sealed his overall victory ahead of Jasper Frahm and Moritz Augenstein (J1).
More info about the race and photos can be found here: 39. Junioren-Etappenfahrt
World Champion Igor Decreane is already winning time trials this year with a victory in Opoeteren and in West Vlaanderen provincial championships. Decreane also took fourth place in four man sprint on Tweedaagse van Calvebeek junior event won by Antoine Loy.
Volta Limburg Classic for juniors was dominated by Norwegians who took all podium places. Elvard Blikra, European Youth Olympic champion from last year, have won. Kristoffer Halvorssen was second and Tobias Foss took third. Few days earlier Halvorssen won Knesselare event in Belgium. Keep an eye on those two young guys from Norway, we will hear about them a lot this season.
Russian juniors took a trip to Israel for three day event, Tour of Arad previously secheduled as 2.2 uci race but it was held as an amateur event in the end. It's not a junior race of course but actually it was juniors who dominated it. Nicolay Cherkasov have won two stages and overall with Stepan Kurianov finishing second on stage one, fourth on stage three and ended up third overall.
Senne Leysen from Belgium is a guy that deserves a mention. He was third in Opoeteren time trial event won by Decreane but at the time he already had four wins this season in Belgium and solid places on international level (12th in Kuurne, 18th in Andre Noyelle and 13th in Roubaix).
Dutch sprinter Peter Lenderink is another multi winner this year with three wins and one second place in amateur events in Netherlands and Germany. I'm pretty sure we will see him in action in races like Driedaagse van Axel so keep his name in mind. Bram Welten is another Dutch riders that deserves a mention. He was fifth in GP Andre Noyelle but he won two smaller races already, Omloop van Schijndel in Netherlands (Cornelisse was fourth) and Budingen Zoutleeuw in Belgium (Cornelisse was second). Worth to mention that this kid is from 1997!
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