Global Champions Tour, double victory for belgian Nicola Philippaerts

Win the Global Champions League and the Longines Global Champions Tour Grand Prix in the same day is a rare achievement. The world No. 1 Harrie Smolders had done it last year in Chantilly and the Belgian Nicola Philippaerts imitated him after a jump-off that he almost won since the begining, in the greatest serenity, always with H & M Chilli Willi. Starting in second place, his time of 37’26 was enough to beat the German Daniel Deusser of … 4 hundredths: “A second place which, honestly, I have to complain today.“ The most dangerous opponent of the Belgian could have been his team-mate of the previous class, the Englishman Ben Maher, a second and a half faster, but at the price of a fault: “This fault really cost me a lot, but I I’m really happy for Nicola“, he said with the British’s own fairplay, but his fifth place did not prevent the Englishman from remaining in the lead of the overall standings, with the hero of the day, Nico Philippaerts, already the winner last month in Cascais, Portugal, was fifth: “I did my jump-off without trying to exaggerate speed except at the end where I especially tried to remove some strides before the last fence. I believe that I went really fast on this last fence! Here, sometimes we live this kind of day where everything smiles. For the moment, everything is going well and I hope that this good series will continue “.
Fond of people of this magnificent sport will be entitled to extra time after this “Chantilly global championship“ because there is still a day of competitions including the Master Del Monte, another Grand Prix with jump-off, which has been programmed so that the spectators (very numerous today since the 6000 places were practically all occupied) do not miss the kick-off of the other great sporting event of the weekend, a certain France-Croatia.
Source: Longines Global Champions Tour ChantillyPhoto: RBPresse P. Renaudon