The second of the three European Mixed National Championships groups and this time, we've a bunch of 4 nations battling for both a road and the TT-champion.
A huge name will be at the start this time: Pluchkin (B&O) is aiming for taking the Moldovan double against two compatriots.
Croatia and Romania feature 4 riders each with two more ProTour-riders (Kvasina/Vesuvio and Nechita/1t4i) lining up. Also two Serbians will fight for glory.
Croatia
Romania
Kristijan Durasek (Alstom-RBC)
Andrei Nechita (Project 1t4i)
Emanuel Kiserlovski (Kappa-ENI)
Eduard Grosu (Metinvest)
Pavel Potocki (HTC Nieuwsblad)
George A. Stancu (Swedbank)
Matea Kvasina (Vesuvio)
Alex Ciocan (Mobil - Castrol)
Moldova
Serbia
Aleksandr Pluchkin (Team B&O)
Nebojsa Jovanovic (Pendleton's)
Alexandr Braico (PFG-Armavia)
Gabor Kasa (Adira-Isq)
Nicolae Tanovitchii (Team Privatbank)
Up for the road race, facing a 110km hilly parcours and a hilltop-finish. A quite interesting constellation with 13 riders from 13 different teams here.
5 riders broke clear early in the race and we've also all four participating nations covered in that breakaway:
..well, they don't react at all, allowing the gap growing up to 40 minutes! Obviously, no ones willed to pull Pluchkin back to the front and compatriot Ciocan is already ordering the team car to quit the race soon..
So back to the front, where the action is on with less than 4km to go: one of the two Moldovans in the leading group - Tanovitchii - tries to solo away from the group and take the title that way!
He's swallowed by the group with only a kilometre to go though, as Potocki overtakes him easily! The other Moldovan - Braico - is now close behind Tanovitchii for the most interesting fight here!
Potocki takes the race and the Croatian road title! A quite impressive sprint and a well deserved win.
Just a few metres behind finishes Tanovitchii, who managed to hold off Braico easily! Romanian Stancu finishes within the same time and the Serbia-title goes to Kasa, who suffered on this climb though.
Road titles/
Pavel Potocki (HTC Nieuwsblad) Nicolae Tanovitchii (Team Privatbank) George Alexandru Stancu (Swedbank-PEAB) Gabor Kasa (Adira-Isq Project)
The 40km ITT will certainly show, who's "really" the best on the road - or at least against the clock, as (most probably) no one will sit up and relax here.
Serbia/ Nebojsa Jovanovic (Pendleton's) has no problem to take the Serbian TT-title, beating Kasa by almost two minutes for a dominating win in this two-men-competition.
Romania/ Four Romanians battle for the TT-glory, but Andrei Nechita (Project 1t4i) is simply too strong for the other three and takes the title by more than a minute ahead of Grosu (Metinvest).
Croatia/ The Croatia-group was expected to be the closest here, but outsider Kvasina (Vesuvio) couldn't compete with a strong riding Kristijan Durasek (Alstom), who takes the title by 48" on Kvasina. So another "easy" win.
Moldova/ And of course anything but a dominating win for Aleksandr Pluchkin (B&O) in the Moldovan competition would have been a real shocker. So the top-favorite, who couldn't make the time-limit in the road race, delivers this time and takes out the timetrial by more than a minute on Durasek and 1'21" on compatriot Braico (PFG), who's the runner-up just like in the road race.
Croatia
Romania
Moldova
Serbia
