Lipica Open: Meeting Friends Print
Written by Klaus Schgaguler   
Sunday, 09 March 2008 20:45
Krajna VasI remember Lipica Open always as a nice competition in the beginning of the season. One of the first occasions to meet all O-friends after the winter break. And also this year I came here not only for competing. Well i have to say, i like the terrain in Lipica. Typical karst terrain, technically demanding, but good visibility not so fast.
What can i say about my competition yesterday. My goal was to use the race to regain this "perfect-competition feeling", that means first of all absolutely avoid any kind of mistake. I did not succeed fully. At control number 7 where i lost my concentration on the longer leg and lost some time. For the rest no real mistakes, just fighting with the stony ground and the green areas. I lost 7 minutes from Michail Mamleev who won yesterdays race 20 seconds in front of Thierry Gueorgiou. Damian Renard was third.
So in the chasing start today it was quite crowded when I started. Already in the first part of the course a group of 5 was formed. I tried to break away several times during the competition, but got caught again. Towards the end we caught up more runners and after a long final sprint I was able to run into 6th spot, gaining some positions. Good fun fighting head to head.
Exactly the same picture in the first 3 positions as yesterday. Michail got caught after he made a direction mistake, but was able to run away uphill towards the last controls.

The results can be found on lipicaopen.com.