French Enduro Series: numéro quatre.

This 4th round could have been a corner stone in the 2016 Enduro French Cup rankings and it was indeed the case. On the 310 riders at the start gate, we noticed straight away that Loic Piazon and Clément Benoit were missing, due to injuries at training or on races after Millau. Then Florian Baladier, 3rd of the overall, got injuried during the first stage. It was therefore 3 serious favorites knocked out of the race before they could properly enter the battle, this sport could sometimes be very cruel.

 

Some riders were really looking forward to this race in Les Orres. The older ones had memories of an Enduro Series round in 2005 whilst the younger ones like its bike park and its steep, sometimes very steep tracks. On this original Enduro Series format and for the first time this season, the riders with better DH skills thought they'd have an edge, and it would be the case.

Ex-XC rider converted successfully to enduro, Nico Filippi came as the overall leader on this 4th round but would finally go back home 3rd after a tough week-end for him, he would have liked to do more damage control. Baptiste Gaillot now 4th at the overall has also lost a lot on this round, with probably a bit of exhaustion after so many races for him.

On the scratch time, this week-end winners are all on the podium:

Sébastien Claquin, pur (and also very young) enduro rider got his first win thanks to an exceptional Stage 1 riden to perfection by the Marseille born rider.

Ludovic Oget, the Eastern man, also had his best performance and progress every week-end on his technical bases as ex DH racer.

Camille Servant confirmed all the good things we thought about him by getting on his first podium. If you add the solid Yannick Pontal 4th, we got here the big winners of the week-end as, with Filippi and Gaillot, they're now 6 and only 6, to be really close together for the title.

On the female category, Mélanie Pugin was dominating the rest of the field but a puncture would make her lose too much time over Morgane Such. Axelle Murigneux, very consistent, has the overall leading position but it'll be very tight with her 2 rivals Morgane Such & Anaïs Laroubine. Julie Duvert who was leader until now was injuried, we hope to see her again soon.

In Master 1, strong domination of Yannick Sénéchal, whilst Gilles Doze leads the overall thanks to his consistency.

In Master 2 Patrick Bonifay is "cruising along" towards the title.

The Junior category offered us an expcetional show in Les Orres. Quantity and quality, the future is bright to replace the French enduro riders of the EWS world level.

Rafael Palot took the win, but Valentin Brulas was only at 3.7sec and Corentin Macinot at 6sec. The spectators had the pleasure to witness this intense fight in Les Orres. At the overall, Valentin Brulas is still leading in front of Gatien Pernet a bit behind these last two days.

We'll meet again in Valloire the 8th and 9th of August, one of the founding rounds of the Enduro Series, where French enduro wrote history many times.

 

Résumté de la Coupe de France 7IDP Enduro-Series #4 Les Orres