During the weekend of 9 till 11 June Hellingproof defended the pride of Wageningen on the GNSK in Eindhoven. For the women Els, Esther, Sigrid and Vera were present. The men were with six riders: Bas, Conor, Gijs, Niels, Robin and Tjalle. In total four different races were organised. Only the first ten teams/riders got points for the overall team classification.
On Friday evening we clearly won the first “race” on the party, unfortunately no points were obtained for this. The next day a prologue of 4.2 km and a team sprint were planned. Three of our strongest time trial ladies and men rode the prologue, while the sprinters (more or less) started in the team sprint. In between the naps on the grass everybody did their job. For the prologue the ladies unfortunately did not earned points, but Sigrid rode strongly to a 12th place, Els 15th and Vera 18th. For the men Niels became 2nd, Bas 6th and Tjalle 16th. In the team sprint both the women and men became 5th.
After a nice Saturday evening the hardest day was here: a team time trial and a criterium. The women rode a strong time trial and finished 6th. Our Hellingproof men were on fire and won the team time trial with force majeure. They were now on the second place overall, with only a small gap to the number one!
In the criterium that followed it was full gas from the start in both races. Unfortunately no points were obtained by the women. Esther rode very strong, but suffered a puncture in the final lap. Els finished just behind the peloton, while Sigrid and Vera were in another group behind Els.
Niels was able to ride in the breakaway group and finished 7th. Bas and Robin finished in the reduced peloton. Tjalle also rode in the peloton, until he had a puncture 1,5 lap before the finish. Conor and Gijs finished just behind the peloton. Unfortunately the men just missed the podium and ended up at the 4th overall place. The women finished at a 6th place.
All in all it was a super weekend, with lots of sunshine!!
