enduro news
© Bob Mullins   

 

 

 

 

News
Promising debut for Joakim Ljunggren in the Italian Championship

Joakim put in a strong performance at the highly comeptitive first round of the Italian Enduro Championship in Sardinia last weekend.
Round 1 of the Italian "Assoluti" Championship was run around the city of Olbia on the island of Sardinia last weekend. Joakim Ljunggren will be racing the complete Italian Championship this season in order to have better training between the EWC rounds and already the first round proved to be prefect pre-EWC preparation as a lot of top EWC riders participated in the race.

"I was a little nervous before the race because it was my first real outdoor race aboard my new 2-stroke Husaberg. I have been training on the bike a lot in Spain, but a race is always something different and only in a race you can find out how fast you really are." Joakim explained.

The track was just what you would expect from an Italian Enduro round, a demanding loop leading up into the the mountains including 4 special tests. Unusual wet weather made riding conditions challenging on Sunday when the course and tests became increasingly slippery. Therefore the organizers cut the race one lap short on Sunday and also removed one especially nasty test from the loop.

"It was actually bad for my result on Sunday that they cancelled the short Enduro test because I was doing overall top times there on Saturday. I'm satisfied with my results on both days considering that a lot of EWC front runners were racing here but the best thing about this race for me was that I was able to do really good times on the MX test. It was a grass track and usually I always struggle on this kind of terrain but here it felt a lot better than before. For me it was a perfect preparation for the EWC." Joakim commented after the race.

Joakim finished 4th overall on Saturday and 7th overall on Sunday. The next round of the Italian Championship will be held in Viverone this coming Sunday.