Even though there was a win, the last few races didn’t go quite as the KTM Youngsters would have liked.
The KTM Youngsters were represented in two places this weekend: Timo Brandl, Simon Potstada and Paulina Weigelt competed in the national youngster selection in Weißenfels (Saxony-Anhalt). At the same time, Niclas Look and Nico Wollenberg rode the German road championship in Elxleben (Thuringia).
There, Nico was the first to be challenged on Saturday afternoon. The races were held on a ten-kilometre circuit, which was worthy of a German championship. In each lap, a climb with 200 metres of altitude had to be overcome, partly with a gradient of over 16 per cent, the winding descent on narrow roads required the highest concentration and on the flat the riders had to brave the headwind. The U17 class with over 100 riders and Nico had to complete seven laps. The KTM youngster felt good and was always riding at the front until the third lap. Then there was a crash in front of him and Nico dropped back. Although he was able to close the gap to the front again, he lacked the decisive percentages to keep up with all the attacks after this feat of strength. Nico tried to get to the front again, but it didn’t work. He finished in 44th place, which he was not satisfied with, as more would have been possible.
The U15 race with Niclas followed on Sunday morning. Here, too, there were over 100 starters. After the Bavarian championship title the week before, the KTM youngster had nevertheless planned to fight at the front. He did well for a long time, but in the third lap he missed an attack by a group of nine. Together with three other riders, Niclas was able to break away from the field, but it wasn’t enough to get to the front. In order to avoid a sprint to the finish, the 14-year-old mobilised all his strength and broke away from his rivals. As a result, he finished in a good tenth place, but just like Nico the day before, Niclas was not satisfied.
At the junior classification in Weißenfels, a technical module and a CC race were again on the agenda. Simon finished the first competition in seventh place, Paulina in 13th place and Timo in 21st place. Only Simon was really satisfied with this, as he was able to collect all the points, but was not the fastest with his time. For Timo and Paulina, on the other hand, things didn’t go as planned.
Fortunately for Paulina, there was still the cross-country race the next day. Even before the race in very warm temperatures, which the 15-year-old coped with well, she was looking forward to the course. Coming from the third row, Paulina made it to fifth place by the first turn. After that, she lost positions, but worked her way forward as the start loop progressed, so that she was able to take the lead position at the beginning of the first lap. As usual, Paulina left no doubt about her ambitions after that and continuously extended her lead over the three laps to cross the finish line as the winner.
Timo and Simon would have wished for a race like this – but it was not to be. Starting from the fourth row, Timo drove into the top ten in the starting loop, but then got less air and had to stop the race exhausted on the second lap. Simon had dropped back to 18th place in the starting loop behind Timo, but was able to work his way back to the front after a while. In the end, he raced together with a competitor for seventh place, but the latter broke away from Simon’s slipstream and overtook him. Simon finished in eighth place, for whom the result was okay, as he did not feel completely in shape after a school trip during the week.
