The World Duathlon Championships kicked off the World Multisport Championships today in Ibiza, Spain.
In the elite men’s race, one of the finest athletes to grace the sport, three time world champion Mario Mola, had a score to settle. Earlier this year, he won a bronze medal at the European Duathlon Championships. The winner that day was Frenchman Benjamin Choquet while the young Belgian Arnaud Dely took silver.
Behind the smiles before the start of the race, it was clear that Mola meant business. Over the first 5km, he set the tone with his brisk pace.
With a 14:09 5km to kick things off, Mola threw down the gauntlet to the field. Hugo Milner of Britain was the next man into T1, a full 12 seconds behind with Dely for company. Choquert followed a second later but Mola was already away with his bike and speeding towards the mount line.
Some of Milner’s inexperience showed as Choquert and Dely gained a few seconds on him but Mola was in his element. By the end of the first lap of the 20km bike he had stretched his lead to 30 seconds and looked as if he was going to cruise to victory. However, the nine man chase group behind him would not roll over and worked to reel him in over the second lap.
By the end of the second lap, Mola had been caught while others had bridged to the chase from behind, creating a lead pack of nineteen. As the Dutch duo Thomas Cremers and Daan De Groot took up the role of setting the pace, Mola sat within the pack. The slightest crafty grin betrayed his confidence.
Towards the end of the third and final lap, Krilan Le Bihan began to move up but the dash for T2 saw others pass him. Mola swept towards the front but it was Erwin Vanderplancke that dismounted first. Vanderplancke was also the quickest through transition and dashed onto the run with a 2 second lead.
Mola soon caught him though and assumed his place at the head of the race. One of the few men able to contend with him on foot – Milner – unfortunately did not finish on the bike, thereby removing one obstacle from Mola’s path to victory. He still had to confront his vanquishers, Choquert and Dely, from earlier in the year.
Over the 2.5km, Mola did not stretch his lead to the extent of the opening run. Choquert, though, simply could not keep him under wraps. In the end, Mola cruised to an 8 second winning margin ahead of his French rival.
For the Spaniard, revenge was a dish best served under the Ibiza sun.
Dely looked like he would complete the podium however Le Bihan snagged the bronze medal in the closing stages.
The women’s race was no less dramatic.
Since moving up to long distance triathlon, Emma Pallant’s primary forays into the short distance world have come at the World Duathlon Championships. After the Brit took home the world title in 2015 and 2016, a bronze medal followed in 2017. In the subsequent years, though, she did not reappear at the championships.
When she arrived in Ibiza, she therefore had all the credentials of a pre-race favourite but her extended absence meant a question mark hovered over her. Moreover with the likes of WTCS medallist Ai Ueda starting, a win was by no means guaranteed for Pallant.
The opening 5km stretched the field but did little to separate the leading names. Pallant and Ueda both looked comfortable, logging 5km splits of 16:48 and 16:49, respectively, as did Celine Kaiser and the Italian veteran Giorgia Priarone.
The Hungarian triathlete Zsanett Bragmayer ceded 31 seconds to Pallant on the run and briefly looked like she was in trouble. That proved a storm in a teacup as Bragmayer bridged to the front pack in the opening bike lap and soon hit the front.
It was on the second lap that Bragmayer fully revealed her magic trick. Along with Pallant, she ripped a massive turn on the bike and in what seemed like the blink of an eye had a lead of 50 seconds.
While Priarone and her compatriot Marta Bernadi fought to stem the loss of time, they had no answer. By the end of the bike, the lead was a ridiculous 3 minutes 49 seconds. Both Bragmayer and Pallant were simply imperious on two wheels.
Having led the opening run, Pallant made short work of the 2.5km after the bike. Although Bragmayer gained time on her in T2, Pallant breezed past her to win by 23 seconds. After her sterling work on the bike, a silver medal was just desserts for Bragmayer.
Further behind, Priarone and Ueda were locked in a battle for the bronze medal. In the closing stages, Ueda managed to nudge ahead to beat Priarone by 2 seconds.
The U23 classifications were extracted from the results of the elite races. In the men’s U23 category. Riccardo Martellato overcome a 10 second pre-race penalty for being late to the briefing to take the U23 win. He finished 5th overall in the elite race.
Arriving only 12 seconds after Martellato was Hugo Figueiredo of Portugal (8th overall) while Jose Ignacio Galvez Ponce took 3rd (and 11th overall).
In the women’s race, Asia Mercatelli finished 14th overall but that was enough to earn the U23 title. Her fellow Italian Chiara Lobba finished 29 seconds behind her (in 16th) and Eléonore Hiller of Belgium took 3rd (from 20th).
View the full results here.
