Results from Off Road Day One of the 2024 Red Bull Romanics where four-times winner Mani Lettenbichler made a winning start on a dramatic “hardest day ever” which left some riders “broken” and just eight official finishers in Gold class.

2024 Red Bull Romaniacs Off Road Day 1 in a nutshell:

• A long 140-kilometre was on the cards for day one at the 2024 Red Bull Romaniacs. Promising to be the toughest of the week for the Gold class riders it proved to be the toughest day ever with the world’s leading riders pushed beyond their limits on some epic hills (ups and downs) and just eight offficial finishers.
• The story of the day should have been Mani Lettenbicher’s dominant and impressive start to the race. Taking advantage of leading from the front, the Red Bull KTM rider ticked off one checkpoint win after another to pull a lead and look like he was in a different race.
• But in the afternoon “the hardest day ever at Romaniacs” unfolded with rain affecting grip and riders struggling to make it through the course, exhausted, without water, some sections requiring winches to get bikes down and Gold class riders not reaching the official finish after the last checkpoints were cancelled.
• Check the rider commenting it was too much...

• A big part of the problem was the length of day for the Gold class which began 07:20 and finished at 15:00 (for Lettenbichler). For two-times winner Jonny Walker it proved to be an almost nine hour day and he wasn't the last rider home. Do you think they made it too hard by any chance?!
• If you were watching the early on the LeattLive feed from the Brother of K2 section (watch it here), you’ll have seen Lettenbichler’s almost effortless three laps in his trademark style and the reason why he now leads by almost 30 minutes.
• A few set-up changes to his EXC, and the lead was cemented – he was already clear of the chasing pack which included Mario Roman, Wade Young, Michael Walkner, Teodore Kabakchiev, Jonny Walker, Mitch Brightmore and Matthew Green were all pretty close on check times but were already in another race on their own.
• Lettenbichler went on to clock in 28:11 clear of Sherco rider Mario Roman, plus HEWC points leader and Xross winner, Wade Young fighting for third on the podium almost five minutes down on his former teammate.
• GASGAS official rider Walkner dropped to fourth after earlier being P2, less than a minute down on Young with Kabakchiev in fifth.
• After electing not to race the prologue finals due to recently broken ribs, Graham Jarvis had an extra hour in bed this morning and though that meant tougher tracks and climbs in places, the old dog climbs into sixth place overall with a gritty ride albeit over one and a half hours behind the leader.
• Last official finisher was Jonny Walker who was physically broken with exhaustion. From ninth place backwards a time penalty will be added for not reaching the checkpoint within time allowance. 
• All the above went on despite the rest of the race competitors, more or less. All other classes were unaffected by the impossible climbs and most faced dry and warm conditions, although some saw the rain in the afternoon depending on their finish time.
• The Silver class looked like belonging to the silver birch himself, Chris Birch. After holding the lead, the seven times podium finisher at Romaniacs got pipped by 23 seconds at the post by Austrian Patrick Riegler. Hungarian Kornel Ott also carries prologue success through into day one with third scratch, 2.37 behind Birch.
• Holding with big bike traditions laid down by Pol Tarres in the Bronze class (this year Pol is contesting the Silver class) , Kevin Gallas finished five hours of hard work on a Yamaha Tenere with the class lead. British rider Josh Kirby is four minutes adrift the German with Kiwi Ethan Jameson third.
• Iron class sees a leaderboard headed by Austrian Peter Wuth already holding a clear lead of 14 minutes from Kiwi Mark Whyte followed by a heap of Cypriot and Greek riders.
• Atom class sees a Brazilian Porn star  among the leaders on day one but Candian Alexander Petroiu claims the day victory ahead of Kazakhstani Dimitriy Reznitskiy and Romanian Valentin Ganea.

Red Bull Romaniacs Off Road Day 1 results, top 20 by class

Gold class:

These results are provisional and may update.

Silver class:

Bronze class:

Iron class:

Atom class:

Photo Credit: Future7Media | Andrea Belluschi