MendelRace 2022

9/4/2022

Michael Spögler (ITA) wins solo at the Mendel Pass and defends his title / Christina Rausch (GER) also repeats her victory from 2019

The young "Sarner" asserts his supremacy on the Mendel Pass

It was a long dry spell of 2 years: the 7th edition of the race series for racing bike amateurs Südtirol.Berg.Cup could finally take place again this year after the cancellations of 2020 and 2021 - and in the same manner as before the Corona era. The race series kicked off with the MendelRace on the Mendel Pass.

A total of 124 participants from Austria and abroad registered for the first challenge of the new racing season. Due to the unstable weather conditions throughout the week, 107 racing cyclists presented themselves at the start in Eppan on Saturday 9 April to tackle the Mendel Pass at an altitude of 1,363m. At the start were numerous mountain specialists such as Michael Spögler from Sarner, Italian champion and winner of the last edition of the MendelRace and thus defending champion; Andrea Zamboni from Trento, a 3-time winner of the Mendel Pass; Franz Wieser, Alessandro Sogne, Thomas Gschnitzer, to name just a few others. But there were also prominent participants from abroad: ex-professional cyclist Jörg Ludewig appeared on the entry list, as well as the Ötztal extreme racing cyclist Patric Grüner.
Former road cycling world champion Maurizio Fondriest did not want to miss the opportunity to take part in a race again: he entered the race with start number 117, the same number with which he won the world championship title in 1988.

The weather held and so the race was started shortly before 2pm. The first kilometres were quite calm, the pace was quite fast.
And so this time a group of about 20 people reached the so-called DigiSprint (sprint classification after 4 kilometres) together, from which Andrea Zamboni from Trentino sprinted out and crossed the sprint line first and grabbed the prize money.

As a result, the pace remained high but the peloton relatively quiet. At halfway in the mud, the lead group still consisted of 11 racers, including the Spögler brothers, Zamboni, Sogne, Ludewig, Gschnitzer and Grüner. And it was Michael Spögler who then started to increase the pace for the first time in order to break the group. One by one, competitors had to leave and fell away from the leading group. The wind was also an unpleasant opponent and so it was important to use the slipstream and not to waste too much energy.

At the height of the Tumor valley, 4 km before the finish, the leading group was reduced to only 4 riders: Sogne, Capelli, Wieser and Spögler. Spögler tried time and again to shake off his opponents. The first of the group of four was then Alessandro Sogne, who could not keep up the pace. The last section began, the last 3 kilometres with a total of 9 of the 15 hairpin bends of the Mendelpass road, and Simone Capelli was already a little behind. So the race had to be decided between the two friends Franz Wieser and Michael Spögler... again in a sprint, like in the previous editions? The two reduced the pace slightly to recover briefly before Spögler dared the decisive attack one and a half km before the finish, which Wieser could not follow this time. The rider from Sarner kept up the pace and was able to pull away decisively. His lead over Wieser grew to almost 10 seconds on the last kilometre, and so Michael Spögler reached the finish on the Mendel Pass in a solo run after 39.29 minutes of racing time and could register himself as the winner of the MendelRace 2022. He was followed by Franz Wieser (Rodes Val Badia; 39.39 min) in second place and Simone Capelli (39.56 min; Lundici Sarco SC) in third place.

In the women's race, Germany's Christina Rausch from Team "Unter - Brao Caffè" was without competition: she reached the finish line in a time of 46.35 min and was more than 13 minutes ahead of the runner-up, her compatriot Rike Fänger from Team "AlpecinRideClub". The Ukrainian Olena Barabash (Giuliani Cicli Arco) came in third.

MENDELRACE 2022 – results

Men
1. Michael SPÖGLER – ITA – ASC Sarntal Raiffeisen – 39.29 min
2. Franz WIESER – ITA – Rodes Val Badia – 39.39 min
3. Simone CAPELLI – ITA – Lundici Sarco SC – 39.56 min
4. Thomas GSCHNITZER – ITA – Poli. AVI Bike Team – 40.08 min
5. Alessandro SOGNE – ITA – Unter-Brao Caffè – 40.17 min

Women
1. Christina RAUSCH – GER – Unter-Braocaffè – 46.34 min
2. Rike FÄNGER – GER – Alpecin Ride Club – 59.37 min
3. Olena BARABASH – UKR – Giuliani Cicli Arco – 1:01.19 h
4. Erika BETTINAZZI – ITA – Team DeRosa Santini – 1:02.55 h
5. Laura SCHWEITZER – GER – Alpecin Ride Club – 1:05.07 h

DigiSprint powered by DigiPrint (after 4,25 km)
1. Andrea ZAMBONI – ITA – Unter-Brao Caffè

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MendelRace 2022

9/4/2022

Michael Spögler (ITA) wins solo at the Mendel Pass and defends his title / Christina Rausch (GER) also repeats her victory from 2019

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Dynamic Bike Team Eppan ASV