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18th October 2010: Re-scheduled from earlier in the year, the Spanish National Track Cycling Championships took place this weekend at Palma Arena, Mallorca. Star of the event was Bronze medallist from the World Omnium Championships at the Copenhagen World Championships Leire Olaberria who rode away with five golds and two silver medals. Olaberria’s first title came in the Omnium where she dominated proceedings winning all six events ahead of fellow Basque rier Ana Usabiaga and Catalan Debora Galvez. In the Men’s event Mallorca’s David Muntaner had a tough battle with Unai Elorriaga but eventually took the title by a single point thanks to his superior performance in the Kilometre time trial. Eloy Teruel took the Bronze medal.  Sergi Escobar takes the Points Race Not content with just contesting the Omnium on the first day, Olaberria produced a time of 37.033s to finish second behind Cataluyna’s Helena Casas in the 500m Time Trial after the rider from Barcelona produced a winning time of 36.358s. Basque rider Ainhoa Pagola took the Bronze with 37.771s. Likewise, Muntaner took silver in the Kilometre time trial with a time of 1m 06.275s, 0.7s slower than Murcia’s Pablo Aitor Bernal who took the victory in a time of 1m 05.597s. Elorriaga was third with 1m 06.926s. In the u23 event Menorca’s David Alonso took Gold with a time of 1m 04.059s, beating Euskadi rider Hodei Hazkiaran’s time of 1m 04.380s and Sergio Aliaga of Navarro who took the Bronze in a time of 1m 06.460s. Making a final push for a place in the Spanish team for the 2012 Olympics is veteran rider Sergi Escobar of Cataluyna who unlike other riders is deciding not to retire and continue to ride in an attempt to make London and following his performance in the Scratch Race when he dominated proceedings to take the victory you can totally understand why the Catalan great has postponed any retirement plans. Martzel Elorriaga of Cespa-Euskadi and Joaquin Sobrino of Asturias took Silver and Bronze respectively. For Sobrino it was a fantastic result as the Asturian had never competed on the Track before, however after spending a week on the Track prior to the National Championships, Sobrino decided to give it and his persistence paid off as he took stood on the podium next to one of the legends of Spanish Track Cycling. Later in the championships Escobar took the Points race and Pursuit but was unable to add a fourth Gold in the Team Pursuit after Murcia’s Luis Leon Sanchez joined Eloy Teruel, Pablo Aitor Bernal and Ruben Fernandez to narrowly beat his Cataluyna team.  Murcia's Men's Team Pursuit squad were too strong for Cataluyna We spoke to Luis Leon afterwards who commented “Yesterday in qualifying we under-performed as riders such as Eloy Teruel had a heavy schedule so as long as we made the final we would be happy with any time, even so I think we did pretty well and winning Gold is fantastic" “Tuesday was the first time rode a Track Bike, but thanks to experienced riders like Teruel and Bernal I gained the confidence required and became comfortable on the track. We were really psyched to get a good result” When asked about whether he’d compete on the track over the winter, Sanchez commented “I asked the Murcian federation if they could run a Team Pursuit at the nationals as we could make a strong team which I could contribute to, thankfully they said yes and it was great fun, however with the individual events I would need to dedicate more time as you have to have a lot of training. With my main priority obviously being road riding I will not find the time. Now I go on vacation where I need to learn English before joining my new team Rabobank for the new season” In the Team Pursuit, Olaberria teamed up with Olatz Ferran and Ana Usabiaga to record a time of 3m 52.304s that was easily enough to clinch the Gold medal from the Murican team. Olaberria also took the Scratch and Points Race to continue her dominance of the event before Muntaner teamed up with Albert Torres to take victory in the Madison with Helena Casas taking her fourth Gold in the Keirin.  Balearic Team Sprint squad, Tomeu Gelabert (L), David Muntaner (C), David Alonso (R) Sergio Aliaga avoided the crashes to win the u23 Keirin with Itmar Esteban heading home a Catalan clean sweap of the senior Keirin ahead of Adria Sabate and Alfreo Moreno. Esteban, Sabate and Moreno were unlucky not repeat the performance of team-mates Alba Diez and Helena Casas in the women’s event and claim the Team Sprint as the Baleares trio of Tomeu Gelabert, David Alonso and David Muntaner took the title. In the Sprint competitions it was no surprise to see Helena Casas take the women’s title with relative ease. Juan Peralta beat Hodei Mazkiaran to take a tough u23 category with Itmar Esteban beating team-mate Alfredo Moreno to take the senior title. For Full Results, Click Here
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