Posted: January 16, 2005

Triathlon: Lang and De Gasperi Win European Winter Champs

Sigrid Lang from Germany and Alessandro De Gasperi from Italy are the European Champions

Freudenstadt, Germany, 15 January: For immediate release: Temperatures around zero, beautiful sunshine - perfect conditions for the Women's Winter Triathlon European Championships in Freudenstadt, Germany. Many athletes started the competition with high expectations - among them German local matador Sigrid Lang (current World Champion), Marianne Vlasfeld from the Netherlands and the current U23 European Champion Carina Wasle from Austria.

The 3 laps of the run course took about 10 minutes each for most of the athletes. The first lap was led by Carina Wasle, followed by Sigrid Lang and Stefania Bonazzi from bella Italia. The lead changed at the end of lap 2, Lang took over control. Bonazzi and Wasle tried to work together to keep up with her pace. Lang finished the run with the leading time of 29:20 and maintained her 10 seconds lead, while Bonazzi and Wasle kept the distance short to her. Marianne Vlasfeld lost over one minute to the top of the field, Camilla Hott Johansen from Norway even more, 1 ˝ minutes.

The tough bike course was likely to advance the stronger athletes in the field, and so it did. Lang and Bonazzi managed to get the break from Wasle and the rest of the field. The tricky and technical course didn't allow the building of bigger groups, so the rest of the field followed one-by-one.

When the field came back to the second transition, Lang managed to build up a small gap of ten seconds on Bonazzi, and the two leaders had a comfortable lead of more than one minute on Vlasveld and Jutta Schubert in 3rd and 4th place.

Early into the final ski leg the final outcome was aleady evident as Lang took an early lead and Bonazzi couldn't make any efforts to catch up with her - she seemed to have spent so much energy on the bike leg.

The athletes coming from behind, Vlasveld, the two stong skiing Norwegians, Hott Johansen and Maria Kalnaes, plus Wasle and Schubert managed closed in on Bonazzi and finally overtake her. But there was no chance to close the gap to the race leader Lang who won the triathlon after 1:40:20 by the impressive time difference of over three minutes to silver medalist Marianne Vlasveld and another minute to the winner of the bronze, Camilla Hott Johansen.

Maria Kalnaes, Carina Wasle (who won the U23 category) and Jutta Schubert followed them in the classification. Just a few minutes after the women's race ended, a big field of 40 men filled the small village road of Kniebis (Freudenstadt) at the stating line. The race was supposed to be an open game, with at least twenty athletes able to make the podium. The insiders considered "summer triathlete" Alessandro De Gasperi from Italy, Nicolas Lebrun from France, Frode Pedersen from Norway and Patrik Kuril from Slovakia to have the best chances.

The running leg was dominated by the trio of De Gasperi, Lebrun, and Victor Lobo from Spain (running time within 25 minutes of 7,5km). They continued to build their gap on the rest of the field and by the end of the run had a good 30 second lead.

Arne Post from Norway, Heinz Planitzer from Austria and German local David Roderer followed in places 4, 5 and 6.

The situation didn't change much on the bike course as the lead group of three worked well together to maintain, or even extend their lead to the chase pack of five. Besides the three "chasers", Alf Roger Holme from Norway and Kuril completed this group. The rest of the field followed in small packs, trying hard not to lose too much time to the top field.

Finally, the lead group arrived at the second transition after 58 minutes, with the clear lead of one minute to the second chase pack.

The picture remained the same when the field got on the skis. De Gasperi and Lebrun made their way around the course, tightly followed by Lobo. The Norwegian connection of Holme and Post was completed by today's strongest skier, Frode Pedersen.

Still there was no chance of closing the gap to the leaders at the front: The Frenchman and the Italian pushed each other closer and closer to the finish line, while Lobo dropped back a bit, setting things up nicely for a spring finish.

De Gasperi managed to move to the front on the last downhill section, and kept his small lead until the finish line. Lobo came 3rd to win bronze, "Team Norway" with Holme, Post and Pedersen followed them in place 4, 5, and 6 - raising hopes for a repeat performance of winning the Team Championship in tomorrow's Team Relay.

The U23 competition was won by David Roderer from Germany.

A great competition has ended, and a happy winner De Gasperi shouted out: "What a great day! Grazie!"

For more information about the Freudenstadt ETU European Winter Triathlon Championships visit www.etu-triathlon.org.

Source: ETU Media Release.