She was already really close before, but now it really happened. In the French two days stage race Tour de Belle Isle en Terre – Kreiz Breizh Elites Dames, Ingvild Gaskjenn raced to her first UCI-podium in her career. Not one time, but two. On Thursday Ingvild sprinted to a third place in an uphill sprint on the first stage. The second and last stage ended with a flat sprint and in that Ingvild finished ninth. That was enough to also take the third place in the general classification.
Ingvild was very happy with her results. “Yesterday I ended up alone in the first group”, she looks back on the first day. “So I just had to be smart towards the sprint and luckily it turned out good. We caught the break in the last 500 meters, so we could sprint for the win.” Teniel Campbell from Trinidad & Tobago won the race and was also the winner on the second day.
On that second day Team Hitec Products – Birk Sport wanted to take control. That had to be done with a very young squad. Juniors Irene Midtsveen and Silje Mathisen made their debut for the team, while Amalie Lutro and Thale Kielland Bjerk are first years elite. As Ingvild is also only 21 years old, Norwegian champion Ingrid Lorvik was the only 30+ rider in the team and with that the team that raced Tour de Belle Isle en Terre – Kreiz Breizh Elites Dames was very young.
‘Team worked really well’
That they were young didn’t seem to matter. The riders did a great job for Ingvild, she explains: “Today the team worked really well. We covered a lot of attacks during the whole stage and could keep it together. Then I could do a sprint again, to gain my third place in the general classification. It feels good that it worked out this well.”
