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Salzadella Downhill - day 1 - International Downhill Federation

We are in Spain for the new WQS race Salzadella Downhill, in La Salzadella, which is the start of this year's Euro 'tour'.

It's now somewhere after midnight and finally the temperature has dropped a bit. All throughout the first day the sun was scorching. Not as bad as Maryhill, but it was in the 30's (Celsius that is) and tomorrow (actually today by now) is expected to be even warmer.

But this fact didn't disturb any riders. They were ready to go, regardless of the temperature. The riders list wasn't that big, which meant runs were done quickly and before the lunch break we already did 6 runs.

Kevin Reimer Sliding @ Salzadella 2015
Kevin Reimer Sliding @ Salzadella 2015

The pool next to the camp site and was the place to be during the break. People flocked their for shade and a refreshing dip in the water. The break was 2 hours, which gave everybody plenty of time to recuperate (a bit) from the morning session.

The first day was a freeride day so everybody could explore the track, which is gnarly, as you can see on the pics we just posted on the IDF Facebook page. The straight is just one long acceleration, up to 109 kph (done on luge by that Spanish bullet...) leading into a chicane, which cause a few crashes.

Most of the crashes were minor ones luckily, but unfortunately Alex Dehmel crashed into Javier Tato's board which flew back on the road, after he crashed himself, in which he hurt his hand and had to go to hospital to find out something is fractured and he needs surgery. So get well soon Alex.

Shuttle @ Salzadella 2015
Shuttle @ Salzadella 2015

There was another heavy crash, involving another German, Andreas Mangold. He went into the chicane after the straight, wobbled and crashed hard in the what was thought to be the for-last run, which then became the last run, because of the seriousness of his injury.

At this time his situation is unknown, he went to hospital and we haven't heard any news yet, but we wish Andi all the best of course.

Tomorrow is the first race day, with race to qualify for all classes.
The planning is as follows:
Morning
- women
- juniors
- classic

Afternoon
- street luge
- open

Lugers @ Salzadella 2015
Lugers @ Salzadella 2015

More news tomorrow, but you can already check more photos on our Facebook page and check the results here.

Mentioned riders

This post is related to Salzadella Race 2015

Berry Plasman

This post was written by Berry Plasman

Berry, or Beee as he's known by friends, is a downhill fan from the flattest country in the world. He supports the IDF during races and online, like building/maintaining the (new) IDF website. Next to that he runs Freerides.org, Sk8whls.com and SkateSafe.org.