Saint Ulrich am Pillersee

Day 2 Saturday 23rd January

This morning in St Ullrich am Pillersee, when we woke up it was snowing, and it has been snowing all morning long. Temperatures were slightly higher than in previous days, but still cold and the wether was excellent for the dogs.

The trail, still perfectly prepared by Uwe Schott and his team were perfect but slightly slower than yesterday. While I thought they might have been more difficult for Ski-Joerers, in fact it was more technical but they all enjoyed it !

As we have several Ski-Jöring classes, let´s try to see what happened:

In SJ 2 dogs Men, Marcel Matanin (SLK9 the leader yesterday has been passed by three other competitors: Now Igor Stefan (SLK) is the new leader, followed by Sebastian Astelbauer (A) and Frank Brehm (D).

In SJ 2 dogs Women, Nathalie Roland (F) is still first but Susanne Noppe-Haller (D) as come much closer, 2" only behind, the third being Sylvia Perl (A).

SJ 1 dog 1 Men is still leaded by Roman Reistetter (SK) but Jan Neger (SK) is now second and Michal Ivanco, also from Slovak Republic, third.

SJ 1 dog 1 Women is still leaded by Carla Reistetterova (SK) who increased the advence on Elisabeth Smejkal-Hayn (A) and the young French Loriane Beaud.

Klaus Bäumel (A) remains leader in SJ 1 dog 2, in front of Jean-Michel Hoog (F) and Sepp Brugger (A). these three racing with Greenland dogs. While in SJ 1dog 2 Women the three ladies race with Alaskan Malamutes and Helga Obrist (A) is leading in front of Emma Hoog (F) junior, second and Maria Pröll (A) third.

Once the SJ classes were gone, trails were excellent for big teams...

In O class, Frans Weissher (NL) was almost as fast as yesterday, and 6´ faster than Loris Bottega (I), followed by Claudio De Ferrari (I).

In A class, Onno de Jong (NL) was much faster than yesterday and is now second and chasing Karl Rachbauer who remains leader. Hans Reich (D) has taken the provisional third place.

B1 class with six Siberian Huskie is a Dutch story... Carel Vd Mortel is first, Andre Vd Brink is second and Jan Groot Kormeling is now third, followed by another four Dutch teams, before the other country representatives can show up.

In B2 Class, Zbiniew Heczko (CZ) and his six Greenland dogs passed Bernd Sauerhöfer (D) who is now second with a team including one Malamute, The third being Marco Visconti (I) with his sixGreenland dogs, followed By Ernst Lippush (A) and his Samojeds and then Peter Lipcsei (H) with 6 Malamutes.

In C1, another Vd Mortel, Gudrun is leading the category, followed by two other Dutch teams, Niels Havenaar second and Lonneke Bom third. Another Dutch musher, Ron De Ruiter is leading the C2 Class with 4 Greenland dogs, closely followed by Alain Diffort (F) and Jean-Michel Hoog (F).

Sebastian Astelbauer (A) is the new leader of D1 class. Thomas Reuter (A) being second and Valentina Durio (I) junior who is now third. In D2 class While Bernd Kirstein (D) remains first and Sabine Klein (D) second, the thirs is now the French junior Theo Kentzinger, who passed Marc Brocard.

All mushers were really happy with today´s race and the third heat tomorrow will be really exciting because so many positions can change in so many classes.

Now we will first enjoy the musher evening with an excellent dinner and music, but I guess that not all teams will dance late at night if they want to get their titles tomorrow.