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Chilling at the river Drau (Drava) in Maribor,

after a short shopping tour in the old town.

This district of Maribor is callend Lent

and there are a lot of reataurants, bars and cafes,

you see it is perfect for chilling.

Vor ein paar Tagen ist die Autobahn zwischen Ptuj und Maribor freigegeben worden. Heute morgen sind wir zum ersten Mal drauf gefahren.

The World Cup racing in Maribor this weekend made for some great viewing (results and article here for DH and here for 4x), and we’ve sifted through the online footage for the best coverage of the women’s racing. There are still some ‘major’ sites who don’t include the women riders in their coverage at all! They won’t be named, they’ll simply be shunned!

Here’s what we found for your viewing pleasure:

Emilie Siegenthaler riding for Scott on the Freecaster live feed. One of many wicked riders who didn't make it to the 'top 5' replays but who are well worth watching.

If you watched it live on Freecaster.tv like we did, there was some great footage from the well-placed cameras covering most of the track, and it’s great getting to see all the action in high-quality streaming video if you have the connection speed to cope. However, you may have noticed that Rob Warner arrived late and commentating didn’t start until well into the women’s runs. Then Rob and co-host Anneke Beerten became confused as to who was on track! Hopefully they’ll sort it out next time because there was some great action in the first few minutes that was missed. Check out the Freecaster crew here in the DirtMag photos, working hard, and drinking hard in Rob’s case!

Here’s where we normally link to the Freecaster highlights, but they’re uncharacteristically late and are promising them later in the week. We’ll update this when they go up. But the 4x is on their site already – click here for the final, here for semi 2 and here for semi 1.

The German site ‘Internet Bike Community’ at mtb-news.de have also got some nice clips up already. Check out their interviews with the top three 4x women (Anneke Beerten, Melissa Buhl and Caroline Buchanan), and click the picture below for the top three downhillers talking about their runs (Floriane Pugin, Emmeline Ragot and Sabrina Jonnier):

'I am disappointed, and a little angry...' Yup, apparently that is Emmeline's angry face!

DirtMag.co.uk’s DirtTV are also keeping viewers up to date with what the women are doing, this time roping 4x racer Jill Kintner into interviewing the top 5 women, so you get to hear from Mio Suemasa, and Celine Gros who tells Jill about coming back to ride ‘just for fun, just for the feeling.’ It’s not very often that having such a relaxed attitude to racing results in such great results. And finally, Sabrina Jonnier is NOT HAPPY! Click the pic for link:

Click for link to the DirtTV top 5 women interviews

Sabrina Jonnier narrowly took the victory at today’s 5th round of the 2009 UCI World Cup in Slovenia. She had a fast, clean run which stood up to fastest qualifier Emmeline Ragot’s time by just 0.31 of a second. That’s pretty frustrating for Emmeline who has still never won a World Cup round, but her second place today bumps her up to number 2 in the overall ranking, ahead of Tracy Moseley who finished well back in 9th.

Sabrina Jonnier caning it through the rockgarden in the Freecaster live footage

Third place went to new European Champ Floriane Pugin, who headed down the hill early and spent a very long time in the hot seat waiting for her fellow fast French riders to try to beat her time. Celine Gros came close but had to settle for 4th, and Japanese rider Mio Suemasa made it onto the podium in fifth.

Floriane getting comfortable in the hot seat

There aren’t many junior women racing at this level this year, but both Emma Atkinson from the UK and French rider Fanny Lombard made it through to the final, with Fanny narrowly beating her British rival. Emma had an off in the rockgarden when she encountered Brigit Braumann walking her broken bike and then crashed into a tree, so she definitely lost some time there!

Not very often you see two people walking their bikes on the track at a World Cup!

Thanks to extreme weather yesterday, the qualifying was delayed until race day, so it was a condensed format with practice starting at a painfully early 7.15, quals at 9.30 and racing at 1.15. Although it didn’t rain today, the women riders were still sliding around in their qualifying runs. Worst affected was Tracy Moseley who lost well over a minute from not one but three crashes (including stopping to check if her ankle was broken, and then colliding with French rider Myriam Nicole) and qualified way back in the field. However, due to her overall rank she started mid-pack for the race run.  She still had a terrible run though, hopefully T-Mo will be back on form at the next round.  The Trek team manager  Martin Whiteley told Freecaster.tv that Tracy’s physically in top shape and that he’s been pushing her to ride hard and crash rather than finish conservatively, in a high-risk strategy to get the leader jersey back. Sounds like a lot of pressure…

The riders have a month to recover until the next World Cup race at Mont Sainte Anne, Canada.

Results from the UCI:

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Australian rider Caroline Buchanan took out the top spot in today’s wet, muddy 4x racing in Slovenia. The rain and thunder was so bad that the DH qualifying was postponed as the chairlift was unsafe, but the 4x went on regardless. Caroline’s win came after leading riders Jill Kintner and Anneke Beerten tangled in the final, allowing her to slip through a gap and pin it to the finish line ahead of Melissa Buhl. France’s Emmeline Ragot won the small final to take fifth, which puts her and Anneke’s Suspension Centre team back in the overall World Cup lead for 4x teams in 2009 ahead of Jared Graves’ Yeti/Fox team. Nice!

The racing is already up on Freecaster.tv, click here for the final, here for semi 2 and here for semi 1

Eccoci giunti alla tappa europea di Maribor (Slovenia). La piccola località slovena è ormai un classico del calendario gravity, ed anche quest’anno sarà una delle tappe piu’ suggestive di Downhill e 4cross. Il percorso della dh con i suoi 2,5 km di lunghezza e i 448 metri di dislivello è stato reso celebre dalla pietraia, affrontata tutta su ruota anteriore da Sam Hill lo scorso anno. In campo femminile la favorità d’obbligo dopo le tre vittorie consecutive è Sabrina Jonnier (Maxxis-Team Rocky Mountain) con una Tracy Moseley (Trek World Racing) ansiosa di tornare sul gradino piu’ alto del podio. Andando alla gara maschile ci si chiede chi possa competere con il duo Santa Cruz Syndicate composto da Steve Peat e Greg Minnaar, autentici schiaccia sassi della prima parte di stagione. Anche questo appuntamento sarà interamente seguibile su freecaster.tv e su eurosport2.

Ultimaora: A causa delle pessime condizioni meteo, le qualifiche previste per oggi sono state rimandate a domani mattina (Domenica) alle ore 09:30. La gara resta confermata alle ore 13:00 (Woman) e alle ore 14:00 (Man

The World Cup riders are in Maribor ‘feelin the Slovenia’ for this weekend’s double dose of world cup action. We didn’t make that up – it’s in this ‘teaser’ video for Maribor as a logo preusmably to entice English-speaking tourists to this Eastern European country.  Seriously, that’s their catch phrase? Even Martha Hucker wouldn’t stretch to a pun so obscure that it requires careful use of bold fonts to make sense! But now that it’s begun, we Slovenia this video, so Czech it out – there’s footage of Germany women riders kickin Massachusettes at last year’s race, and some Spainful crashes. Ok. Enough. Watch the vid.

Click to watch the vid on the official website.

The fourcross qualifiers went down without too many surprises – Jill Kintner qualified first again and will be hoping to stay clear out in front to clinch the win. The downhill is delayed till tomorrow a.m. because of torrential downpour….

4x Qualifying:
1 Jill Kintner (USA) 0:00:56
2 Anneke Beerten (Ned) +0:00:01
3 Caroline Buchanan (Aus)+0:00:02
4 Anita Molcik (Aut) +0:00:02
5 Jana Horakova (Cze) +0:00:02
6 Fionn Griffiths (GBr) +0:00:03
7 Katy Curd (GBr) +0:00:03
8 Diana Marggraff (Ecu) +0:00:04
9 Joanna Petterson (RSA) +0:00:04
10 Mio Suemasa (Jpn) +0:00:06
11 Lucia Oetjen (Swi) +0:00:06
12 Melissa Buhl (USA) +0:00:06
13 Rachel Seydoux (Swi) +0:00:08
14 Emmeline Ragot (Fra) +0:00:09
15 Eva Castro Fernandez (Spa) +0:00:10
16 Tereza Votavova (Cze) 0:00:11
17 Angelika Hohenwarter (Aut) 0:00:16
18 Stephanie Teltscher (Ger) 0:00:16

Yesterday (while we were all still talking about Missy Giove) the UCI announced it’s 2010 World Cup Calendar. Next year will see a shorter series with just 6 races, five of which are in Europe and one in the US. The World Champs are the last race of the season and will be held in Mont St Anne, Canada.

There are some big, steep tracks included for 2010 and this will shift the focus away from building pedal power. This has dominated many rider’s 2009 training after the WC series kicked off with the pedaly course in South Africa, and will finish on the even flatter World Champs track in Canberra. Next year will be quite different, Champéry in particular is crazy-steep and is often described as not needing a single pedal stroke from end to end. Exaggeration? We’ll see…

Here’s what the UCI said on their website:

The 2010 World Cup will include six rounds for each discipline and will take place at nine venues in eight countries.

Dalby Forest, in North Yorkshire, Great Britain, will open proceedings for the 2010 UCI Mountain Bike World Cup. This region in the north of England will host, for the first time, the cross country specialists in the world series.

After an absence of four years, the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup will make its big comeback in the United States in 2010. For the first time, the ski resort of Windham, in the state of New York, will host the world’s best cross country Olympic, downhill and 4-cross specialists for the final of the season. This will take place a few days before the World Championships in Mt-Ste-Anne (CAN).

The 20th edition of the Mountain Bike World Cup will also stop over in Houffalize (BEL), Maribor (SLO), Offenburg (GER), Fort William (GBR), Schladming (AUT), Champéry (SUI) and Val di Sole (ITA). This Italian resort is new to the World Cup calendar this year, but has already hosted the UCI Mountain Bike & Trials World Championships in 2008.

Here’s the 4x and DH dates, or click for the full PDF:

01-02 May Houffalize (BEL) 4x World Cup Round 1
15-16 May Maribor (SLO) DHI/4X World Cup Round 1/2
05-06 June Fort William (GBR) DHI/4X World Cup Round 2/3
19-20 June Schladming (AUT) DHI/4X World Cup Round 3/4
24-25 July Champéry (SUI) DHI World Cup Round 4
31 July to 1 August Val di Sole (ITA) DHI/4X World Cup Round 5
28-29 August Windham (USA) DHI/4X World Cup Round 6
31 August to 5 September. Mt-Ste-Anne (CAN) UCI XCO/DHI/4X WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

Maribor (German: Marburg an der Drau) is the second largest city in Slovenia. The population of Maribor is approximately 133,000. Maribor lies on the river Drava at the meeting point of the Pohorje mountain, the Drava Valley, the Drava Plain, and theKozjak and Slovenske gorice hill ranges. It is the center of the Slovenian region of Lower Styria and its largest city. Maribor Airportis the second largest international airport in Slovenia. The nearest larger urban center is Graz (Gradec) in Austria, which is about 60 km (40 miles) away.

Maribor’s coat of arms features a white dove flying downwards above a white castle with two towers and a portcullis on a red shield.

(bibliography: wikipedia)

This proposal would form part of a network of high-speed rail lines (HSL) in south-central and south-eastern Europe. The line is intended to connect the proposed high-speed rail line Wien – Maribor (and the line from Graz), with the proposed Drava plain high-speed line. It would include upgraded existing lines, and two new cut-off lines. The new line would carry primarily high-speed inter-regional services: originating in Graz, Carinthia, Ljubljana or Maribor, and terminating in Pécs, Osijek or Beograd (Belgrade).

The new line would start at Maribor, and end with a connection to the Drava plain line, just east of Koprivnica. It would have several distinct sections:

• a new high-speed line south-east from Maribor toward Ptuj – in fact a new line to Zagreb, with a short connection to Ptuj.
• an upgraded main line east of Ptuj
• a new line connecting that line to Varaždin, and
• a new 45-km line from Varaždin to Koprivnica, parallel to regional line R202.

Maribor (population 111 000), is the regional centre of the Podravska and Pomurska regions (population 440 000). The existing route from Maribor to Ptuj is L-shaped: south to Pragersko, then east to Ptuj. The rail network here shows its Austro-Hungarian origins: two main lines from the dual capitals Vienna and Budapest converge, at the village of Pragersko. (Their destination is the main Austro-Hungarian port, Trieste). The obvious improvement is a cut-off line.

The two lines converging at Pragersko, and the schematic cut-off route.

A new Maribor – Zagreb HSL would follow the A4 motorway. It could therefore shorten the rail route to Ptuj, to about 30 km. Trains would leave the Zagreb HSL, via a curve to the existing line, and cross the Drava into Ptuj (population 24 000). The alignment though Ptuj is not optimal: trains would turn east, north-east, and east again. However, that is outweighed by the line’s proximity to the historic centre.

East of Ptuj, the old imperial line is almost straight, but it now passes two borders. It enters Croatia, passes through Čakovec as Croatian line M501, and leaves the country again. This line can probably be upgraded for 200 km/h. For the connection to Varaždin, there are three options. The simplest is a west to south curve, just west of Čakovec, connecting to line R201 toward Varaždin (shown in blue). A longer cut-off line, starting near Središče ob Dravi (shown in red), would shorten the route.

In both these options, the line through Ormož must be improved. The railway here is constrained between a hill and a bend in the river, and the existing line forms an S-bend. Ormož itself (population 2300) is too small to justify a stop for fast trains. A northern by-pass would be about 8 km long, and would need a 2-km tunnel. A simpler solution is a southern by-pass, even through this means crossing the Drava twice.

….

The shortest route to Varaždin is a new 22-km line, starting west of Ormož, and running parallel to the Drava flood relief canal. The Ptuj – Varaždin route would then be about 40 km long. The line would enter Varaždin, by a relatively sharp curve at the northern edge of the town. In all three options, the existing north-south alignment through Varaždin (line R201 to Zagreb via Zabok), would be retained and upgraded.

….

Varaždin has a population of 49 000, and is capital of Varaždin County (184 000). South of the station, the new line would turn east. It could use a wide curve from the Zabok line (shown in red), and then join the existing R201 alignment near the motorway (Croatian A4). A shorter alignment close to line R201 is preferable (orange line), although there are problems with housing near the line. Away from Varaždin, the new line can generally follow the R201. The alignment is almost straight, with a bend at Ludbreg around the tip of the Kalnik hills. The section to Koprivnica would be about 45 km long.

….

At Koprivnica, the line would again use an existing north-south alignment through the town – in this case the main line Budapest – Zagreb line, M201. The town has a population of 26 000, and is capital of Koprivnica-Križevci County (124 000). Leaving the station at the south end, the new line would again turn east (green line, schematic). Several km east of the town, it would join the Drava plain high-speed line toward Koprivnica and Vinkovci. Via this line, trains could also access the high-speed line to Pécs.

The total length of the line, via the Ormož – Varaždin cut-off, would be about 115 km. Since most of the line would be new, and the upgraded sections straight and level, speed can be high. With only two intermediate stations, a journey time of under 45 minutes is realistic. Trains would usually continue through Koprivnica: for instance, another 120 km to Pécs. A Maribor – Pécs inter-regional service could take less than 90 minutes.

Il Consiglio dell’Unione ha annunciato che Guimaraes in Portogallo e Maribor, Slovenia, saranno le capitali europee della cultura nel 2012 seguite nel 2013 da  Marsiglia-Provence (Francia) e Kosice (Slovacchia).

Dopo Liverpool 2008 (Regno Unito) e Stavanger (Norvegia) nel 2009 le capitali europee della cultura sono Linz (Austria) e Vilnius (Lituania), nel 2010 Essen (Germania), Pécs (Ungheria) e Istanbul (Turchia), e nel 2011 Turku (Finlandia) e Tallin (Estonia).

Le dimensioni dell’evento, che si svolge nell’arco di un intero anno, rappresenta una sfida considerevole per cui esiste un sistema di sostegno messo in opera dalla Commissione europea e destinato a supportare le città nel corso del periodo di preparazione. Il titolo di capitale europea della cultura genera importanti effetti culturali e socio-economici ed ha conseguenze favorevoli sul turismo.

 Con 100 milioni di euro di budget su quattro anni, il programma di Marsiglia poggia su “Gli atelier dell’Euromediterraneo”. Un progetto che tiene conto al contempo della vocazione euromediterranea di Marsiglia e della sua volontà di offrire un apporto duraturo all’applicazione del progetto di Unione per il Mediterraneo e delle priorità del programma “cultura 2007 – 2013″ della Commissione: dialogo interculturale, supporto alla creazione, mobilità delle opere e degli artisti.

Nello stesso anno, Košice coinvolgerà i luoghi ufficiali della cultura, porterà la creazione artistica nei parchi, negli spazi industriali e nei quartieri periferici della città. Il progetto della città slovacca mira, infatti, a far incontrare individui di diverse classi ed orizzonti sociali, per scambiarsi idee ed esprienze di vita. Košice 2013 vuole agevolare la comunicazione tra le persone.

 Guida per le città candidate al titolo di Capitale europea della cultura doc633_it