1st Grand-Prix de la Commune de Niederanven - 28.10.2007 - Niederanven

Reports:

Grand-prix de la Commune de Niederanven for elite and U23 riders:

After acts in Walsdorf, Contern, Steinsel, Kirchberg or Gonderange, the 2007 edition of the international cyclo-cross of the ACC Contern has taken place on a cloudy Sunday in Niederanven, with the traditionnal event in Contern being postponed until the National Championships in January 2008. The new course around the sports and leisure centrum "Am Sand" caused some controvery: physical and tough according to some riders, too easy and fast according to others. One thing is sure, the course brought some spectacular racing for the spectators wiht lots of suspense until near the end. If the riders spent most of the time in small groups, one of them showed out to be stronger than the others, both phisically and mentaly: Johannes Sickmüller. The German rider waited for his chance patiently, hanging at the back of the front group, before accelerating wiht two laps to go and take a nice solo victory ahead of Frenchman David Derepas and his team-mate René Birkenfeld. 37 riders took off at 15h15 o'clock and Belgian rider Davy Commeyne, 25th of the world rankings and big favourite, was the first to enter the off-road sections, soon relayed by the Spaniard Isaac Suarez. After that, it was René Birkenfeld who accelerated and the field was strung out in a long line with some gaps beginning to show. In the second lap, a front group of 8 riders had formed with most of the favourites in it: Birkenfeld and Sickmüller the Germans, Commeyne and Van den Bosch the Belgians, Suarez from Spain, Chrobak the Czech rider, Derepas from France and Luxemburgish rider Jempy Drucker. The next chasers were named Daelmans, Vaubourg, Hekele and Skarnitzl and they were only a few seconds back. But the hopes of the Luxemburgish public quickly faded away when Drucker had a mechanical problem and lost more than a minute on one lap. Suarez also lost some ground and so, they were only 6 left in the lead, and those six would show a tight battle until the end. Birkenfeld and Chrobak were the most active riders and attacked several times, just like Derepas who would have preferred a more difficult course. Davy Commeine and Sickmüller stayed calmly in the wheels, they left some small gaps from time to time but were nver really dropped. Tactical race or physical weakness ? Sickmüller gave the answer to that question by attacking sharply with two laps to go and surprising his opponents. The other riders were afraid of Birkenfeld who had made a very big impression until then and hesitated to open the chase: the winner of Mühlenbach 2006 was gone. "This course suits me very well and I will be able to get onto the podium and maybe even win", the German had said before the race and he was busy showing it. Behind Sickmüller, Chrobak made most of the work, before David Derepas managed to get off alone in the poursuit. But the task was difficult for him because the leader, in his fluid and powerfull style, had already more than 20 seconds advantage. Finally, Johannes Sickmüller had time to celebrate his first season win and crossed the finish line with 18 seconds advantage on Derepas. The third place was decided in a sprint between between Birkenfeld, Commeyne and Chrobak, where the eventual German champion gained the right to climb onto the podium next to his team-mate. While the cyclo-cross of the ACC Contern has been dominated for more than a decade by the Belgian riders, none of them even managed to get onto the podium in 2007. What a surprise !!! The young Tom Van den Bosch, who sat in the leading group for a long time, took sixth place ahead of Jan Skarnitzl, who had a very strong finish to take the place of best U23 rider. And what about Jempy Drucker? After his flat tyre, the Fidea rider found himself in 30th position of the race, but he didn't want to give up. One by one, Drucker gained positions and managed to get into a second group with riders like Daelmans, Perrin, Denolf, Hekele and Vaubourg. But he had lost a lot of strengh already and as U23 rider, he isn't used to racing a full 60 minutes. Jempy finally finished in 13th position, a little bit more than 2 minutes late on Sickmüller. Pascal Triebel also did a good race, he managed to hold onto Drucker's wheel for some time and finished on a nice 15th place as second-best Luxemburgish rider.

Grand-prix Comat for women, novices and juniors:

If there was a lot of suspense until the very end in the main race, this clearly wasn't the case in the youth categories where Christine Kovelter, Bob Jungels and Vincent Dias Dos Santos dominated the race without ever being in danger. 29 riders showed up for the 19th Grand-prix Comat, a lot more than used to do in the past years. From the very beginning, Vincent Dias Dos Santos took the lead and when the first difficult sections of the course were in sight, he had already taken off. With good technical skills, strong and fluid, the young rider regularely increased his lead on Josef Rauber. The defending champion couldn't do anything against Dias Dos Santos, finally lost 1'22" and had to battle hard in order to maintain his second place against Schlechter and the young Belgian Denolf. In the novice category, the winner was ... UC Dippach. The team showed up with nearly half of the participants in this category and with Bob Jungels, Alex Kirsch, Kevin Feiereisen and Nicolas Kleman, they took the four best places in the race in this order. The first lady was also from Dippach and is named Christine Kovelter. While National champion Nathalie Lamborelle was absent, Kovelter had no problems in holding off the young Trixie Godart and could proudly show her 11th place in the common rankings with the novices. Before the Grand-prix Comat, the day had been animated by the Kim Kirchen fan-club and some activities around the person of the T-Mobile rider. Around 40 leisure cyclists had the possibility to go with Kim on a training rider of one hour and a half, before chatting with him around a fresh beer. After that, Kirchen showed up at the Yuppi's Trophy for young riders, giving some precious advice to the 52 participants and smiling for souvenir pictures. A very busy day in Niederanven for the International cyclo-cross that surely was worth all the work that it cost.

Grand-prix de la Commune de Niederanven 2007 >>