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  April 12-13, 2003 |
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World Outdoor Trials Championship Round 2 Luxembourg
Double Win for Freixa |
The winner on both days of Round Two of the 2003 World
Trials Championship, held at Ettelbruck, Luxembourg on
April 12 and 13, was the 23-year-old Montesa HRC rider
Marc Freixa. This result lifted the Spaniard in one swoop
to second place in the series rankings. Second on both days
was Dougie Lampkin, also of Montesa HRC and winner of
the season opener in Ireland, while Takahisa Fujinami was
fourth on both days. Lampkin kept his top spot in the
rankings but Fujinami dropped back one place to third.
The Ettelbruck course includes many artificial sections of
sloping wood and large rocks, and the dry, sunny
conditions over the two days made the course quite dusty,
which hardly made things more difficult. The riders were
therefore expecting fewer penalty points, and delaying
their start on their first section attempts on Saturday in an
attempt to gain any advantage.
There was nothing to separate Freixa and Lampkin on
most of the 15 sections of the first lap. Freixa was about to
finish that lap with a two-point gap ahead of his rival, but
then Lampkin failed to finish within this season's newly
introduced 3.5-hour intermediate time limit (the
regulation time for finishing Lap 1) and suffered a further
two-point penalty.
On the second lap, Freixa seemed to have handed Lampkin
the advantage by five-pointing the first section, but then
Lampkin failed on sections 8 and 13, and so in the end it
was Freixa who took the honors on the first day.
Fujinami had problems on Saturday's first lap in the form
of a damaged rear shock absorber, but completed the next
lap and the day's competition with minimum penalties.
However the Japanese rider just missed out on a podium
place, finishing fourth behind Freixa, Lampkin and the
Sherco team's Graham Jarvis.
With only two changed sections on day two, the top riders
were nervous because low penalty points were again
expected. In the warm spring sunshine, the spectators
gathered in large numbers around the starting point and
waited impatiently for the riders to start.
Lampkin committed an unfortunate error on section three
of the first lap, but then recovered with a clean section
eight while Freixa and the Beta team's Kenichi Kuroyama
both picked up five-point penalties. By the end of the lap
the order was Kuroyama, Lampkin, Jarvis and Fujinami.
Because the riders had used up most of their total time
allowance on the first lap, they had to take the sections
more quickly on the second lap. Lampkin crashed on
section three under the extra pressure and the repairs to
his machine took time, but no gap opened up because
Freixa and Kuroyama made similar mistakes too.
In the end, the second day's free-for-all was won by Freixa
with 19 penalty points, followed closely by Lampkin and
Kuroyama both on 20 penalty points. Lampkin took the
tiebreak for second place, pushing Kuroyama back into
third. Fujinami was unfortunate again to just miss out on
the podium, finishing in fourth place on day two.
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World Outdoor Trials Championship Round 2 Luxembourg
Day 1
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| 1 |
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Marc Freixa (montesa HRC) |
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| 2 |
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Dougie Lampkin (montesa HRC) |
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| 3 |
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Graham Jarvis (Sherco) |
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| 4 |
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Takahisa Fujinami (montesa HRC) |
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| 5 |
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Kenichi Kuroyama (Beta) |
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| 6 |
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Marcel Justribo (Honda) |
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Day
2
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| 1 |
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Marc Freixa (montesa HRC) |
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| 2 |
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Dougie Lampkin (montesa HRC) |
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| 3 |
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Kenichi Kuroyama (Beta) |
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| 4 |
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Takahisa Fujinami (montesa HRC) |
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| 5 |
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Graham Jarvis (Sherco) |
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| 6 |
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Jordi Pascuet (Gas Gas) |
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