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Despite a “lap of honour”: Luis Leão Pinto from Portugal is the winner of this year’s Salzkammergut MTB Trophy!

Bad Goisern: Luis Leão PINTO of Portugal wins the main event in the Salzkammergut MTB Trophy 2013. This most gruelling of challenges is 211.3 km long and takes in a breath-taking 7049 metres of altitude.  And he managed to make a detour too!

At the beginning of the race there was some rivalry among the elite competitors as to who was going to win. Favourites  included Rupert Palmberger (GER),  last year’s winner Ondrej Fojtik (CZE) , Wolfgang Krenn from Liezen (champion in 2011) and Bernhard Eisl from Salzburg. In the middle of the race,  it looked like there could well be a dual victory for Fojtik and Pinto.

Portugese man wins despite detour!
In the last few kilometres of the race, Pinto overtook his rival and it appeared he would be the clear winner. Due to a technical problem incurred by the accompanying motorbike, Pinto was on his own for the last few kilometres. At an intersection, Pinto went was sent in the wrong direction. At this point he had a clear 4 minute lead over Fojtik, and under normal circumstances, Pinto  would easily have won the race.  

Fojtik’s sporting chances!
And so it looked like last year’s winner of the extreme distance event, Fojtik, would enjoy a second victory. His jubilation was suppressed, however, when he heard about the incident involving the motorbike.

Fojtik, however, took into account the 4 minutes’ lead during the final 4 km of the race, which meant that Pinto was this year’s winner – a very fair sporting gesture. With the new record of 9:53:38 was Pinto the first after 2005 to complete the race under the magical 10 hours!

“ I completed the race fairly! I don’t really feel like celebrating yet, but I am sure I will once the awards ceremony is over!”, said the new Salzkammergut Trophy winner.

In third place came Rupert Palmberger from Oberhausen in Germany. Bernhard Eisl from Abersee was the first Austrian to cross the finish line, and he came fourth over all. Wolfi Krenn finished in 5^th place.

Ladies: Germany – Italy – Brasil
Katja Hentschel from Germany won the ladies event with a superb performance. Michela Ton from Italy came second, and third place went to Daniela Genovesi from Brasil.

Goldi completed the course in 12 hours and 31 minutes!
Andreas Goldberger embarked on the extreme distance event and crossed the finish line 12 hours and 31 minutes later. “It was really tough today. To hell and back would be just the right expression! The wonderful surroundings and the amazing spectators all along the route made up for it!”, Goldi told us. A real compliment for this World Heritage region!

Hermann Pernsteiner – Champion of the 119 km event!
Hermann Pernsteiner from Lower Austria was, after a great race, the winner of Race B – 119.5 km/848 metres of altitude. Last year he came third in the same event. David Schöggl  from Styria finished second, whilst third place went to Martin Feichtegger from Lower Austria.

There was a double victory for Austria in the women’s event. Sabine Sommer won the 119 km event and Tamara Muhr came second. Finishing third was Tanja Trinkwalter from Germany.

New “All Mountain” competition: Victory for home-town girl – Double victory for Tirol in the men’s race!
The start line for this brand new “All Mountain” event covering 61 km/2074 metres of altitude was in Bad Ischl, and resulted in victory for home-town girl Martina Deubler. In the men’s race there was a double victory for Daniel Federspiel and Karl Markt from the Ötztal.

New record number of competitors:
A total of 4.546 (eliminator, marathon, unicycle-downhill and junior-trophy) athlets crossed the start line for the 16^th Salzkammergut Trophy event!

SAVE THE DATE: Salzkammergut Trophy 2014: July 11th to 13th

Caroline Loidl | caroline@trophy.at | www.salzkammergut-trophy.at | +43 (664) 53 56 948

Peter Perstl | peter@trophy.at | www.salzkammergut-trophy.at | +43 (664) 38 64 393

www.trophy.at/facebook | www.youtube.at/mtbtrophy | www.flickr.com/mtb_trophy 

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Foto above: Bettina Ravanelli, Bike & More