Race Report: Enduro Sweden Series 2019 Round 3 - Östersund

Another race in the books, another race in the rain and another tight race with familiar faces. The photo above was taken during Saturday's training and does not really give a fair impression of how the Sunday's race looked, but who cares. Östersund has world-class trails with steep and technical parts alongside jumps and berms, giving the riders a real challenge, especially in the wet. The day started of quite dry but right before the first riders entered the savage stage 6 - the rain started to come down, and it was wet.

Enduro Sweden Series - round 3 Östersund

by juanjuavess

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Östersund is the most northern stop in the series this year, located pretty much in the exact middle of the tall country of Sweden. This meant a long drive for most of the riders but the startlist still showed up to 250 riders for this round. The hill Frösöberget is located in the center of the city and the riders had to pedal trough the neighborhood to get to the top, making the climbs quite easy compared to what we're used to.

Östersund is located in Jämtland, a magical part of Sweden, that will make you happy forever if staying there too long.

Stage 1 was dry and fast for most riders, knowing that the rain was coming in later this day got many riders to put an extra effort in the climbs between the stages so they might miss out on the wet.

A pleasant but rare sight was to see Ida Jansson joining the competition, usually she rides the world cup in cross country but seemed to have some interest in the spirit of enduro as well. She ended up in a 4th place this weekend, riding solid the whole week.

Cecilia Thomasson sure is a powerful human, participating and hosting at the same time did not seem to bother her, you could tell she's been riding these tracks before.

Mathias Wengelin, also an XC rider that made a name for himself along the years, he usually gets on the podium when participating in the ESS and this time was no exception, ending the weekend with a 3rd.

The dusty fast trails turned in to a real slippery slope for the last riders, having a crash or two was nothing unusual even for the top riders.

Linn Olstam rode solid as always, she seems to ride very consistent right now, showing up on the podium in pretty much every race she enters. 2nd this time and the overall this year is tighter than ever with a 50 points difference between Linn and Josefine Björkman.

Someone who really stepped up his game this year is Daniel Swanbeck, landing another 2nd this season. The fight for the top spot is so tight in both the women's and the men's this year, halfway through the series and the podium has gotten a few new names that makes this series pretty interesting.

[IWhen the track gets slippery and wet, Josefine Björkman seems to get real fast, somehow this seems to be her real habitat. Ending this weekend with the top spot.

I had some bad feelings in my stomach days before the race and I didn't really feel it before the weekend started, but the trails here are so nice so I knew I really wanted to ride in the end.—Josefine Björkman

Josefine has been competing in downhill for +10 years now and so she got experience with almost every trail condition.

I usually try to stay calm then the tracks get wet and slippery and there's something exciting about races like this, when it gets tough you really need to focus to stay on your bike, this time I managed to go through the whole race without any crashes so I'm really happy about that.

Frösön is not really a bigger hill than any other stop in the series, but it's packed with trails. The stages went quite close to each other and this made it easy to follow the race without having to walk multiple kilometers in the forest.

Consistent - I think this is the best summary for Simon Carlsson at the moment. Last year he won the overall and so far he's been winning every race in the series this year. Simon makes every track look super smooth and easy although they're not.

I really love this place, you can tell that the trailbuilders have some real experience of building trails and it really gives you all different kinds of riding. On raceday, most trails had wet conditions for me and I did have a crash on stage 2 but overall I managed to stay on my bike through the rest of the race.—Simon Carlsson

Simon is on the HIQ team this year and watch out for this guy, he's heading for the EWS.

I changed my tactic a bit during the race since it got a bit slippery, you can't really go with the same speed as when it's dry since you'll pay for it at the end of the day. I think about the consequences of a crash during a race like this and try to stay consistent instead of going all in.

ELITE MEN
1. Simon Carlsson 11.50.37
2. Daniel Swanbeck 12.01.48
3. Matthias Wengelin 12.12.20
ELITE WOMEN
1. Josefine Björkman 14.55.66
2. Linn Olstam 15.17.35
3. Cecilia Thomasson 15.49.54

U21 MEN
1. Jacob Ekström 12.48.04
2. Simon Lundblad 12.51.56
3. Andreas Höglund 13.17.64
U21 WOMEN
1. Elina Davidsson 16.30.80
2. Miriam Holm DNS

MASTER MEN
1. Johan Johannesson 13.15.84
2. Daniel Sjölander 13.35.11
3. Johan Dovermark 13.43.77
MASTER WOMEN
1. Charlotte Von Feilitzen 18.17.59
2. Anna Lundin 19.17.80
3. Cathrine Svensson 20.57.61

Regions in Article
Sweden

Posted In:
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juanjuavess
Member since Dec 15, 2008
14 articles

4 Comments

mitochris FL (Jul 9, 2019 at 8:13)

Looks great. Have to join one day.

howsyourdad (Jul 9, 2019 at 1:25)

rad as always Johan! Better music than usual too ????

OllieB278 (Jul 9, 2019 at 5:15)

Great trails, good organisation, wet weather. That's the ESS this year!

OrjanX (Jul 9, 2019 at 7:23)

Tack! Thanks!