A beautiful and sunny spring weather welcomed us in Bech, back from having been away on the historical grounds of the Grand-prix OST-Manufaktur after two years of perturbation due to COVID. The traditional schedule of the combination with the GP François Faber on the hilly circuit around Bech has proven being good in the past, but in 2022 we have also added a third challenge, the Souvenir Marcel Gilles for young riders. While this had been a project for a long time that was also aborted by the pandemic, the creation this year of the Youth-Cup by the FSCL gave us the inspiration to finally offer races for all categories from Minimes to Masters in Bech, on the opener of the Luxemburg season. The success was there with 194 riders registered for the 5 events and beautiful races, all won by a solitary rider.

In the Cadets category, two riders were stronger than the rest: Jules Huber and Diego Maury finished far ahead of their chasers, although the gap between the two of them was relatively small. In the last lap, the Frenchman and the Belgian rider left their rivals behind them and Huber, already winner of the first round of the FSCL Youth-Cup in Ettelbruck, took the win with a few seconds advantage on Maury from CC Chevigny. Behind them, a small peloton of around fifteen riders had formed in pursuit but Ben König broke away from them at the end to take the third place on the podium, one minute and a half late on the winner and a few lengths ahead of Paul Komes and Loïc Gouveia, the fastest of the group. In a very nice eighth position inside this leading group, Amy Breuer from CT Atertdaul was the first female rider, two positions and only a few centimeters ahead of national champion Kylie Bintz. In the overall classification of the Skoda Youth-Cup, it goes without saying that Jules Huber of the Roussy Bike Club maintains the white leader jersey with a comfortable lead over Matt Esser.< /P>

The female and beginners race also had a nice line-up with 33 riders atthe start line, including 12 women. It was the girls who were active at the front of the pack in the first lap, before the boys took over in the second of the 6 laps to be covered. Before half-race, the peloton had split into several parts and they were about a dozen at the front, among them the main favourites like Dutch rider Sven Joosten, German Nicolas Wirz, Flavio Astolfi, David Loschetter, Arnaud Noirhomme, Theo Da Costa or the riders of UC Dippach: Gremling, Meylender, Donjon and Dos Santos. In this leading group, there were also two girls, Nina Berton and the young Gwen Nothum, whereas Anouk Schmitz, Liv Wenzel, Layla Barthels and Rosine Jung were further back, together with Yannis Lang. The order was established and it was among the riders of the group of 12 that the victory was to be decided, as the gap to the chasers was growing. In the last lap, German rider Nicolas Wirz managed to break away from his companions and took the solo victory, with around 30 seconds advantage on Dutch rider Sven Joosten who was fastest in the sprint of the chasers with several lengths of advantage on Theo Da Costa Passetti. The latter took over the leader jersey of the Youth-Cup after a second place in Ettelbruck, the week before. In the women's categories, Gwen Nothum had to drop in the last lap and Nina Berton was able to enjoy her victory as the only girl left in the leading group. Nothum nevertheless finished first in the beginners category, more than two minutes ahead of the quartet Schmitz, Wenzel, Jung and Barthels who crossed the line in this order. In 25th position of the scratch classification, Mia Berg finishes first of the elite women's category, whereas Lena Lallemang, in 26th position, was able to defend the white tunic of the leader of the Youth-Cup in the beginners category the she acquired 8 days earlier in Ettelbruck.< /P>

The Grand-prix François Faber for juniors and masters, meanwhile, saw no major twits. The attacks were numerous in the first kilometres of the race, but none of them was strong enough to create a decision. The selection was made at the back of the race and, with a few contenders being dropped, they were still around 20 riders at the front in the finale, led by the juniors from UC Dippach. There were Gianpaolo, Massen, Van Lelyveld and Mascolo, four riders in red and white, against three competitors of CT Atertdaul, Kalweit, Stroesser and Kerrens, two representatives of CC Chevigny, Van Holm and Jacquemin, as well as the individuals Kim Bintz and Oliver Paderhuber. The best masters like evergreen Tom Flammang and Steve Fries, Cyril Barthels, Pascal Maquet and a handful of Belgian and German riders were of course also still in the mix for the win. It was not on the toughest part of the circuit, around Jacobsbierg, where Noah Massen made a decisive move in the last lap, and only few kilometers later, on the climb towards Berbourg, the rider from UC Dippach had already built up a nice advantage on his chasers. Massen didn't weaken in the last kilometres, alone against the wind. On the contrary, the same rider who finished second in the Souvenir Marcel Gilles only a few months ago, in the beginners category in Echternach, increased his advantage and won with more than a minute of advance on the Belgian rider Régis Godard, who was the best of the masters category and faster in the sprint than Kim Bintz, Matteo Gianpaolo and Pascal Maquet.

The Grand-prix OST-Manufaktur for elite and U23 riders got off to a flying start with attacks from the opening hectometers. Already in the first lap, 7 riders broke away at the front of the race, led by former National champion in the elite without contract category, Tim Diederich, former GP OST-Manufaktur winner Ivan Centrone and former Grand-prix François Faber winner in the junior category on this same circuit, Colin Heiderscheid. Behind them, the peloton had already exploded and the chasers came in small groups: Tom Thill and Johannes Hodapp were not far behind the leaders, as well as a small group with Benjamin Boos or the Luxemburgish riders Pol Breser and Jacques Gloesener. The third small peloton led by Frenchman Hugo Boulanger was already nearly a minute behind. With a nice effort, Benjamin Boos managed to break away from the chasing group and to get back to the front, so that they were ten riders in the lead at the beginning of the third lap. They were no less than 5 riders of the Leopard Pro Cycling Team, Germans Justin Wolf, Benjamin Boos and Johannes Hodapp, the Belgian Elias Maris and Luxemburg's Colin Heiderscheid against three representatives of the Snooze team, home riders Tim Diederich and Tom Thill as well as German Max Valtey. Against them, Ivan Centrone from Geofco-Doltcini and Finn Roumen from the Netherlands (De Jonge Renner) were pretty much isolated, but did their share of the work to maintain the cohesion in the group. In this conditions, it was difficult for the chasers to tighten the gap: Jacques Gloesener, Pol Breser, Nicolay Dyankov, Philippe Schmit, Philip Meiser and Siebe De Waele lost ground on the leaders and remained under threat of the third small peloton up on the road, a group of 10 that contained among others Spas Guyrov, Pol Weisgerber, Max Larry and Sven Schmit.

The positions were fixed and would not change much in the next laps, except that, with four loops to go and after a good 50 kilometres of poursuit, the two groups of chasers would merge into a small peloton of thirteen riders, that all other the gaps would get bigger and bigger and that Justin Wolf would momentarily try his luck alone at the front around mid-race, without success however. With 20 kilometers to go, Ivan Centrone, Tim Diederich and Johannes Hodapp broke away from the other riders of the break and had several seconds of advantage on the rest of the group. Colin Heiderscheid and Elias Maris managed to bridge up a little later to form a leading group of 5 riders, including three from Leopard. The latter of course wanted to take advantage of their numerical superiority by attacking in turn, forcing Centrone and Diederich to make repeated efforts. The lucky guy finally was Johannes Hodapp: the German produced the decisive acceleration of the day, the one that Centrone couldn't react to despite the big impression he had left until then. Hodapp passed on his own at the sound of the bell, with an advantage of around 20 seconds on a group of seven riders that had reformed in pursuit. Centrone hadn't given up yet and he took off again, with Benjamin Boos as helper of the leading man in his wheel. But Johannes Hodapp was the strongest rider of the day and he won the 34th edition of the Grand-prix OST-Manufaktur solo, one minute and 23 seconds ahead of Ivan Centrone, who was faster in the sprint than Benjamin Boos. Another Leopard rider, Elias Maris, won the sprint of the first group for fourth place, ahead of Heiderscheid, Diederich and Wolf, thus completing this beautiful day of racing and the triumph of the Leopards, with 5 riders among the Top 7.