Young Norwegian, Soren Warenskjold, won the opening prologue to this year’s U23 Grand Prix Jeseník. He completed the 3.4-kilometer course in Jeseník in 4:01, with second placed Alex Vogel of Switzerland five seconds back, and a further 2 seconds slower was third placed Kévin Vauquelin of France. The best Czech rider, Mathias Vacek, finished twenty-eighth, 16 seconds behind the winner.
At the start of the second event of the International Cycling Union’s (UCI) N´Cup there were nineteen national teams. Vogal was eleventh on the starting list to cover the first few kilometers, and his time toped the results list almost until the end. Warenskjold started 4th from the end, and it was he who knocked Vogal off top spot and who starts tomorrow’s stage in the yellow jersey of the overall leader. Half a minute after him started Pavel Bittner, but he finished 18 seconds slower.
"Yesterday we have checked the course so the boys could try it out and today they wouldn’t have to take unnecessary risks or even fall. The race will be decided elsewhere than the prologue. For such a prologue it is necessary to ride on the edge, but we want to compete mainly on the next three days and we want to win a stage and today we took as a warm up. The time differences mean nothing, we will be going up Dlouhé Stráně twice, and so they will be in minutes. I was not surprised that Matias was the fastest, he is after all the junior European Champion. He has the prerequisites, but today was not a time trial, it was a prologue for sprinters and track riders," commented Czech national coach, Tomáš Konečný, on the prologue.
Results:
Prologue (3.4 km):
1. Warenskjold (NOR) 4:01, 2. Vogel (SUI) +5, 3. Vauquelin +7, 4. Lapeira (both FRA) +9, 5. Heissmann (GER) +9, 6. Price-Petjersen (DEN) +9, ...28. M. Vacek +16, 38. Bittner +18, 39. J. Ťoupalík +18, 42. Petr Kelemen +20, 51. Řepa +21, 73. Bouček (all CZE) +26.
