Artūrs Liepa has been a busy man.
Recently, he ran the 3000m at the Latvian Indoor Athletics Championships. In what he described as a tactical race, he ran 8:46.52 which was good enough to take the bronze medal. His personal best remains 8:42.55, a time he ran in March 2022.
As a point of comparison, world U23 silver medallist Gergely Kiss ran 8:23.85 indoors a couple of weeks ago.
We noted Liepa as one of the five Junior men ageing up in 2023 to watch. This year he will be a first year U23 athlete and as such has a few years to reach the standard set by Kiss.
Liepa was not done there, though.
The next weekend, he competed at the Latvian Swimming Championships. In Riga, he took on the 400m and 1500m (both long course).
In the 400, he swam a time of 4:22.50. That was almost 10 seconds off his best time of 4:13.91 from 2021. Liepa took the race out aggressively, opening with a 59.18 at the 100m mark, however over the course of the race he paid the price for that early speed.
Meanwhile, in the 1500 he produced a time of 17:33.92. At the 800m mark, he was 9:18.47 to feet and was consistent throughout the race. From the 200m to the 1400m, his splits did not deviate outside a range of 1:10.21 to 1:11.83. Liepa’s aerobic fitness therefore seems to be in a good place.
It should be noted that Liepa’s best times over the 800m and 1500m (50m) are 8:55.82 and 16:57.54; that puts him on the bubble of what it generally takes to be a front pack swimmer in the men’s WTCS. Moreover his performances in Riga suggest that he is in heavy training.
As a Junior, Liepa won three European Junior Cup races and showed a lot of promise. In addition, last year he took the win at the Baltic Triathlon Championships in Tallinn.
This year it will be interesting to see what kind of performances he can string together in Senior and U23 races. By hunting racing opportunities instead of resting up for best times in February, he will likely have gained a lot from his exploits over the past two weekends. If he can translate his swimming and running into triathlon, he should be be able to build into a good season ahead.
