Dijon, this city that everyone knows, but nobody knows how it is or where it is, but everyone knows this is where the mustard comes from here, and little else.
Our Santafixie BLB Team decided to travel to the north of France in search of the Mustard Crit, the well-known National Moutarde Crit. A very well organised European Crit and very important like few others are. Its reputation is already renowned and it helps international racing cyclists. This year it featured riders from all around the world, from Americans, to Spaniards, Dutch, English, French… amongst others.
Given this fact, it was already clear that the level would be more than high, the leading team of the Red Hook Criterium, the Aventón Team, erupted with their presence, and other teams like 8bar Team, Disorderly Habits or Fixed Gear Crit have not gone unnoticed.
The first day of competition brought us rain, a pole position, qualifications and finals.
The pole position was contested in the first hour of the day, in which our racers Margaux Vigie, Marco Hita and Alex de Cortada took more than decent times, leaving them in an advantageous starting position. Pablo didn’t have his 15 minutes of glory, our Murcia rider crashed against one of the fences in the penultimate corner, which left him in last place in his qualifying.
The results were good for Marco and Pablo, making them advance, though narrowly, to the Super Final while Alex had to be content to run the B Final. All the girls advanced directly to the final.
Margaux Vigie didn’t disappoint, as she’s been doing all season. She brought back home a more than deserved second place in the women’s final against an unstoppable Eleonor Saraiba, current leader of the ranking of the Red Hook Criterium. Thank you Margaux for making us shine amongst the women! Thank you!
The men’s final didn’t go as well for us as the women’s final, our riders started the final in the last places of the starting grid. Their race became a struggle to move up in the ranking instead of a fight to win. Pablo Aitor
managed to make a good comeback, passing approximately half the field in the final, so he went home, despite the result, with a very good race. Marco struggled until the end trying to climb to the top before the motorcycle caught him.
After Saturday’s race and Saturday night with a quiet afterparty, our team began to prepare for the track tests. We went to see our rider Pablo Aitor (Olympic track cyclist in London 2012).
The first test was the 1km. Pablo literally flew on the old cement of the velodrome of Dijon. Finishing, for less than a tenth, in a no less than deserved second position. Considering that Pablo had not competed in this discipline for 5 years … his return promises much! The other surprise gave us our star of the year, Margaux was released for the first time on track in a race … and the result of the kilometer? 3rd position! Few can boast of podium finished in what was a baptism in the velodrome.
Then there was a fun test, the long lap. Our men’s team were unlucky to put their foot down before the second whistle for the sprint, so they were disqualified. The luck returned to provide the team with a top position in this test for Margaux, after an excellent start, she managed to cross the finish line in 1st place. With these two podiums Margaux ranked 2nd in Omnium.
Overall very good, and some not so good, feeling for our riders. Although we always come back with something learned to improve in the following races. Dijon was fun, full of experiences, a new different race. Hey! And we came home with 5 podiums! What more could you want?
Let’s get it all!
