Ziener BIKE Festival Willingen
Defending Champions Ready To Keep Hold Of Their Enduro Titles
Press Release / 18.05.2017
It's the first time in history that the German Enduro MTB Championships are held at the Ziener BIKE Festival Willingen. On Sunday, May 21 at 7:30 AM CEST, when the SCOTT Upland Enduro race is scheduled, all eyes will be on Raphaela Richter and Christian Textor.
The reigning champions are once again the riders to beat.
Richter, who is contracted by Radon Factory DH Racing earned her career's first last year in Schoeneck – only six years after she had started with the sport at the very same venue.
A few weeks later, she crowned her outstanding season with the overall win at the U21 Enduro World Series being only 18 years of age.
Now, one year later, the Franconian would love to tie on to her 2016 results. And she already proofed that she is capable of doing so having dominated the six stages of last year's enduro race in Willingen.
However, it won't be a sure-fire success for her as Franziska Meyer and Ines Thoma are strong competitors.
Meyer, who represents the Ghost Factory RIOT team is the 2015 German champion who was thrown back last year by a broken collar bone.
Thoma is originally coming from cross country racing and is looking back on some European and World Championships participations. But when an injury blew her Olympic dream back in 2009, she switched to enduro just one year later.
Since a few years she is a pro racing for the Canyon Factory Enduro Team – with quite some success. In 2014, she became the first ever German Champion.
Over in the men's event, title aspirant Textor has also some pleasant associations with the Upland mountain bike area and Willingen. Last year, the rider born in Siegen came in second behind of Norway's Zakarias Johansen.
However, the former downhill athlete of Team Bulls has to take things serious if he wants to keep hold to his title.
Erik Irmisch of Team Racing Dudes, last year's Bronze medallist of the German Championships, might be his strongest rival for the win having already some top-5 results on the German and European Downhill Cup series under his belt.
But Felix Heine of Team InFocus is also hoping for a top result.
In addition, Textor should also have Scott rider Tobias Reiser on his list. The former marathon specialist with World Cup experience is concentrating on enduro ever since 2014.
Festival programme.
The full festival programme (official opening Friday, May 19 at 12 PM CEST) can be found online.
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