French rider Loïc Larrieu, former 2019 World Champion and ISDE winner, made his debut with the team in this first round of the Spanish Championship, although Larrieu, will focus mainly on the EnduroGP World Championship and the French Championship. While the rider from Poland, Dominik Olszowy, already made his debut with the brand in the SuperEnduro World Championship, where he finished sixth in the Prestige class.
Completing the Team, the current Spanish Women's Champion, Mireia Badia, will be joined in the EnduroGP World Championship by British rider Rosie Rowett.
The race in Antas, the first round of the Enduro National Championship, was practically the same as in other editions, being hard and tough, due to the arid and stony terrain typical of the area. The intense dust and fech fech caused quite a few problems for the participants and this time, the Rieju Factory Team riders were no strangers to setbacks.
The current champion, Mireia Badia, suffered a technical problem in the first special stage on Saturday, losing a lot of time trying to solve it, with it, she finished in third place in the Women's class. Fortunately, on Sunday, with better feeling and without problems, she got the first place in the category.
Dominik Olszowy, who has just finished the World Indoor Super Enduro Championship, had to adapt to a quite different specialty such as the classic enduro. On Saturday, during one of the specials, he hit the chain guide against a rock and the chain got stuck with the sprocket, which caused him to drop to eleventh position in E3. On Sunday he improved his performance considerably by finishing fifth in his category.
Loïc Larrieu did not escape from problems either, despite setting the seventh best time on Friday in the Super Test, on Saturday, during a special stage, he hit the brake disc and its support, losing a lot of time and being unable to fight, finishing tenth in E-3. On Sunday, the French rider was penalized ten minutes and was out of the race.
The factory-supported Rieju riders had very good results during the weekend. María San Miguel left Antas as the provisional leader of the Women's Championship, thanks to her win on Saturday and second place on Sunday. With the sum of the two days of competition, Bruno Bozzo finished second in the hotly contested Junior Open category, in the same class, Alejandro Ceballos finished fifth. Alejandro Andreu was third in Senior B 2T and Josep Marsal second in Master 55.
Statements:
Mireia Badia:
"In the first special stage it went badly, because the chain came off my bike and I lost up to 13 minutes in the time trial trying to fix it, when I got to the control I lost another 7 minutes more, which made me lose too much time that I could not recover in a rather short time trial, finishing third. On Sunday, with a better feeling, despite a very complicated terrain with a lot of stone and fesh fesh that cost me, I finished first, adding important points for the championship, since only two points separate me from the leader''.
Dominik Olszowy:
"Immediately after the last round of SuperEnduro we participated in the Spanish Enduro Championship in Antas. The change between the indoor enduro tracks and the technical specials of the outdoor races required some changes in my riding technique. We had good speed from the first day, but some problems on Saturday left us out of the fight for the top places. On Sunday we managed to get into a rhythm and finish in the Top 10 overall and fifth in the Enduro3 class. I feel like we made some good improvements over the weekend with the team and I'm looking forward to more races."
Loïc Larrieu:
"Personally, I made big mistakes this weekend, in spite of that, it was a perfect training for me. The conditions were stony and dusty, like the ones we can find in the first two GPs in Portugal.I have seen and learned a lot this weekend in my first race with the official Rieju race team. I know we needed to keep working hard until the next races, but we also added some positive points, with a good speed in some special tests....
Thanks to the whole team and especially to my mechanic Andrew for the support this weekend."
The second round of the Spanish Enduro Championship will be held in Santiago de Compostela at the end of April.
