What an ending to the Euro BMX League it was.
The weekend started with cancelling all championship training and racing on Friday. Buckets of rain fell all evening and races were moved to Saturday morning. The team was in third place in the team ranking at the start of the final weekend. Kristens Krigers was in the lead of the Elite Men Ranking, Gabrielius Pabijanskas 2nd and Mikus Strazdiņš 3rd in the Junior Men ranking.
Drama happened when Edžus Treimanis slipped and crashed hard on the starting hill and was out for the weekend. His injury still has to be assessed after the swelling goes down. We hope for a speedy recovery.
The rest of the morning the race was a mix of up and downs. Our Junior Men Riders Gabrielius Pabijanskas and Mikus Strazdiņš (ranked 2 and 3) were out in front in their motos and both made the main. Gabrielius slipped at the gate and had to chase pack from last place. He fought back to the middle of the pack but dropped some spots in the last straight and had to settle for 7th place. First year Junior Mikus took a good gate from the outside and was battling for the first spot throughout the lap and finished in a nice 2nd place!
In Elite Men Kristens Krigers took a 6th place in Round 7 and a 3rd place in Round 8 losing his first place in the ranking by a difference of 3 points to his training partner. Still stoked with a second place for our second year Elite Men.
Charlotte Devolder was back after a long injury and was racing very well. She qualified for the Elite Women main in which she was going for a podium spot when she slipped and crashed. After joining her latvian team mate in hospital for a checkup she was released in the evening with no severe injury. Great to see her back in the mix.
Also in the Challenge Categories some ups and downs. Some good laps from all our riders but also some crashes. Dees Dewitte was battling against the older boys to qualify but 2 crashes ended his day early. Our youngest rider Caeley Moull is on a roll the last weeks and she was putting in another good lap when a rider hit her back wheel and she crashed. She joined her 2 other team mates in hospital for a check-up. Diagnosis… a broken finger. We had to keep her of her bike because this tough cookie still wanted to race.
What to say about Gianluca Pollefliet. An injury at the beginning of season and a doctor telling him he would not race again? A long recovery with a lot of hard work by this determined youngster allowed him to return to the competition by mid-season to take the national title and 4 semis in 4 Euro League rounds. Great comeback!
Edvards Glazers was on a roll this weekend. The 15 year old was surprised with his 3rd place on Saturday coming from the back of the pack, on Sunday he took a great start in the Main and was battling for first place. He only had to allow 1 rider in front of him, the 16 year old European champion. With his second place on Sunday he secured his 2nd place in the overall ranking in the packed Boys 15/16 Category.
Then 1 more surprise came at the price ceremony for the Overall Team Ranking of the Euro BMX League. We managed to climb a spot in each of the 2 final rounds giving us the victory in the ranking for the 3rd year in a row. Thrilled with this result!
We want to thank our team riders for their strong results and continuous effort to put us in the #1 spot again.
A huge thanks to all our supporting brands that make it possible to have such a great bunch of riders! Thrill BMX, Answer BMX, Tangent Products, Maxxis Tires, Stealth Hubs, Maikun, C-Bear Ceramic Bearings, M-Cax and Samox Cranks. Also thanks to EuroBMX for getting all the goodies to the team.
A big shout out to our fans for cheering us on all year long and our supported teams that have shown great progress again!
Hope to see you all back next year!
Thrill Factory Europe, Winner of the Euro BMX League 2014-2015-2016 #thrilled !
