Iris blooms!
By TMX Archives on 4th Oct 07
LAIA Sanz's total dominance of the Women's Trials World Championship came to an end on a small shingle beach on the east coast of the Isle of Man on Friday.
The Repsol Montesa HRC rider, who had not lost asingle round since the concept of a women's world championship waslaunched in 2000, uncharacteristically put her machine's front wheeloutside the tapes on a craggy rock climb and was immediately docked afail by observer Keith Ellis.
Scorpa-mounted Iris Kramer, who managed to avoid dropping a single fivethroughout the two-lap Peveril MCC event, finished the day with a totalloss of five - one fewer than her Spanish rival, who added a single dabon lap two. It left the two women on identical scores of 37 points inthe series standings and both girls had scored a first and secondapiece over the only two world rounds to take place this year with theBelgian round having been cancelled. And a delighted Kramer claimed thetitle on the best result in the final leg ruling!
Britain's Becky Cook, second at the halfway point,was demoted to third by Sanz in the closing stages, but with Donna Foxfourth and Maria Conway fifth, it gave the British girls a tremendousboost of confidence going into the following day's Trial des Nationsover a virtually identical course.
Although clearly disappointed that herunprecedented 100 per cent record had come to an end, Sanz made noexcuses and was quite gracious in defeat.
Said Laia, ''I made a bad mistake on section four.It was not a very hard section but I held on too long for a clean whenI should have taken a dab. The front wheel went outside of the tape andthat was it.''
FIM LADIES WORLD TRIALS CHAMPS Rd 2 - Douglas, Isle of Man, BRITAIN
1 Iris Kramer (D - Scorpa) 2 + 3 +- = 5
2 Laia Sanz (E - Repsol Montesa) 5 + 1 +- = 6
3 Becky COOK (GB - Gas Gas) 3 + 5 +- = 8
4 Donna FOX (GB - Sherco) 10 + 3 + -= 13
5 Maria CONWAY (GB - Beta) 12 + 9 +- = 21
6 Sandrine Juffet (F - Gas Gas) 12 + 10 +- = 22
7 Claire Bertrand (F - Montesa) 18 + 14 +- = 32
8 Rosita Leotta (D - Beta) 14 + 18 + - = 32
9 Louise Forsley (US - Sherco) 19 + 14 +2 = 35
10 Maryline Journet (F - Gas Gas) 23 + 20 +- = 43
11 Katy SUNTER (GB - Gas Gas) 25 + 21 + - = 46
12 Connie Ludvigsen (N - Sherco) 31 + 24 + - = 55
13 Carla Calderer (E - Montesa) 34 + 25 + 1 = 60
14 Blandine Guillaud (F - Gas Gas) 36 + 25 +- = 61
15 Emilie Westbye (N - Gas Gas) 29 + 34 + - = 63
19 Saskia BAXTER (GB - Beta) 40 + 34 + 3 = 77
FINAL SERIES STANDINGS after 2 rounds: 1 IrisKramer 37 points (CHAMPION), 2 Laia Sanz 37, 3 Becky COOK 30, 4 FOX 26,5 CONWAY 21, 6 Leotta 19, 7 Juffet 18, 8 Bertrand 18, 9 Journet 10, 10SUNTER 10, 11 Calderer 8, 12 Forsley 10, 13 Ludvigsen 7, 14 EmmaBRISTOW 6, 15 Guillaud 2, 16 Ina Wilde 2, 17 Westbye 1.