It was, quite simply, a dream day on the bike for European champion Mads Würtz Schmidt at The Traka 360 where, after clinching the 200 last year, he decided to see what he could do in the 360 and vaulted right to the top step there as well.
There was no doubting just what the win meant for the Danish rider, who celebrated with a swig from The Traka labelled sparkling bottle but, after the initial jubilation, then also looked very ready to sit back in the podium placer deckchair as he waited for his rivals to come through and processed what he’d just done.
“That was surely a day to remember. Yet it all seems like a big blur. I’m tired. Very very tired!,” was his assessment on Instagram.
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It took just nine hours, 57 minutes and 38 seconds for Würtz Schmidt to claim victory at The Traka 360, which, after course changes this year, was actually 325km long, and he carved out a gap of more than 11 minutes to second-placed Hugo Drechou (Gravel Nation) while Specialized Off-Road teammate Matthew Beers was just a little further back in third.
It wasn’t that nothing went wrong for Würtz Schmidt – that’s rarely the scenario in such a long race – but even when a wheel change quickly followed by a wrong-turn left him having to chase back to the front of the race, he never skipped a beat.
“I felt amazing,” Würtz Schmidt told Cyclingnews while in the crowd after the event. “I said to Matt early on, that today I don’t feel my legs. I had an incredible day and I was able to do what I wanted, because I really had the legs.”
“We wanted to put pressure on the climbs in the north, so it was all about being patient and waiting until that moment,” Würtz Schmidt added.
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