Europe Triathlon

Holten came alive this weekend with a massive festival of triathlon and Multisports.

It was not the best weather but the rain did not dampen the spirits of the athletes or spectators.

As expected, the Junior Women’s race was exciting and with the Danish women fresh from their stunning gold-medal winning relay performance in Kitzbühel, many eyes were on Sif Bendix Madsen. Just off the pace in the swim, she caught teammate, Anne Holm.

Holm explained after the race just how it went, “No. 6 in the European Cup in Holten. I swam well and got out of the water in 8th place. T1 went fast and quickly I was out on the bike, in about 4th. Then we have 9km into town where we need to ride 2 laps. On the way into the city, we were about 20 girls. On the laps, you need to make the hill twice, a hard hill. Sif and I had previously talked about making a breakaway up the hill. Our idea was to drive like the Brownlee brothers in Leeds. We’ll push hard, as hard as we can and make a gap of about 15m. We worked well together and the distance to the group was increasing evenly. At T2, we had a lead of about 30 seconds. Out on the run though, I lost 4 places and ended up in 6th place. It was awesome that our plan worked. Big Congratulations to Sif with 1st place.”

“Nr. 6 til Europa Cup i Holten. Jeg svømmer godt og kommer op af vandet i 8. position. T1 går stærkt og jeg er ude på cyklen, som den 4. Efterfølgende har vi 9 km ind til byen, hvor der skal køres 2 omgange. På stykket ind mod byen, er gruppen på ca. 20 piger. Inde på runden, skal man 2 gange op af en hård bakke. Sif og jeg havde forinden talt, om at lave et ubrud op af bakken. Vores tanke var at kører ligesom Brownlee brødrene i Leeds. Vi kører alt hvad vi kan og laver et hul, på 15 meter. Vi samarbejder rigtigt godt og afstanden til gruppen øges jævnt. I T2 er vores forspring på ca. 30 sekunder. På løbet mister jeg dog 4 placeringer og ender på 6. pladsen. Det var mega fedt at vores plan virkede. Stort tillykke til Sif med 1. pladsen.”

We have seen Laura Swannet’s BEL run pace before. She was electric in Kitzbühel but this time we saw a nail-biting finish between her and Russia’s Valentina Riasova who was faster on swim and bike but simply could not hold off the last minute attack from Swannet.

The large Belgian team can be truly proud of her performance in Holten. Bronze went to Belgium and silver went to Britain’s Erin Wallace. Quinty Schoens was the best Dutch athlete on the day with a 9th place.

Following a pretty impressive crash last week in Bled, it was touch and go as to whether Aussie Callum McClusky would be fit to race. The road rash was clearly forgotten as he romped to victory ahead of the European athletes. A closing 16:30 for the run sealed his victory and was a fitting reward for the DNF last week. Just ahead of Felix Forissier FRA, who took silver and Cameron Harris who returned the best performance of his career, winning bronze. For the Dutch, it was Niek Heldoorn who came home in 6th.