November, 30 2024 The first Intercontinental Games kicked off today, Saturday, with the free practice and qualifying sessions that would mark the formation of the starting grids for tomorrow's races that will award the first International Trophy of these Intercontinental Games where the respective representations of the six continents (FIM Europe, FIM Asia, FIM Latin America, FIM North America, FIM Oceania and FIM Africa) are involved.
A day that featured the official presentation of the event by the president of the FIM, Jorge Viegas, who was accompanied at the event by the first deputy mayor of the city of Jerez, Agustín Muñoz, as well as the heads of the Intercontinental Federations. This official presentation gave way to the first of the two Pit Lane Walk scheduled for the public during the weekend, which takes place between 13.15 and 13.45 hours and where fans can walk along the pit lane and take pictures with those who one day will undoubtedly be the new stars of motorcycling.
Today's day started with free practice followed by four qualifying sessions, two for each category, from which the starting grids for tomorrow's two races in each of the classes were selected.
In the Supersport 300 class, it was the Spanish rider Gonzalo Sanchez (FIM Europe) who after the two qualifying sessions took the pole position with a time of 1.56.792, just over two tenths of a second of FIM Oceania rider Archie McDonald who was second with 1.57.012. Closing the first row of the grid, also FIM Oceania rider Cameron Swain stopped the clock in 1.57.164. The first race for this category will take place at 11.00 a.m., while the second will be at 14.15 p.m. “It was difficult because in the end to do two qualifying sessions is complicated, especially with the issue of tires, but well, we managed it well with my team, so I'm happy we had a good day from less to more and now we have to think about tomorrow, do two good races, shine and have fun, which is the most important thing” said the Spanish FIM Europe rider Gonzalo Sanchez at the official press conference after the practice sessions.
Meanwhile, South African FIM Africa rider Dino Iozzo was the reference in the Supersport 600 category, setting the best time of 1'52.047, while the second best time was for FIM Latin America rider Humberto Cezar Maier, who stopped the clock at 1'53.063. Third best time of the category and therefore closing the first row of the grid for the FIM Africa rider Clint Seller in his case with a time of 152.514. 'I'm happy with this result because I had to acclimatize to a completely different bike than the one I've been using in the Stock category this year and I did it very fast, so I hope to have some good races tomorrow' said the South African rider of Italian origin and resident in Barcelona Dino Iozzo. For tomorrow this category has also scheduled two races throughout the day that will have the following schedule: 12.00 h Supersport (Race 1-16 v) 15.15 h Supersport (Race 2-16v).
