One of the lesser known avenues of elite triathletes is that of the military.
In a number of countries, elite athletes are also soldiers. This can often be due to the nature of funding opportunities. Similarly the military (or police) route offers a career beyond the sport.
On a more immediate note, membership in the military also offered a chance of racing.
At the weekend the World Military Championships triathlon events took place in Brive, France. With twenty-one countries participating, the athletes involved took on the Olympic distance as well as a Mixed Team Relay and a number of WTCS athletes took part.
The home French nation had a particularly strong team. On the women’s side, World Cup medallists Sandra Dodet, Mathilde Gautier and Audrey Merle were the standout names with Celia Merle also offering support.
Meanwhile, the French men’s team included Nathan Lessmann, Aurelien Raphael and Pierre Le Corre. Of particular note was Raphael’s rank of Brigadier chef.
Within Hungary’s squad was the current world U23 silver medallist, Gergely Kiss. Karolina Horvath and the recently crowned World Aquathlon champion, Zsanett Bragmayer, were central pillars of the Hungarian women’s squad.
Among the other familiar faces were Paulina Klimas and Agnieszka Jerzyk for Poland and Noah Servais for Belgium. Djenyfer Arnold of Brazil was another athlete to take part in the proceedings.
Gautier won the women’s race in comprehensive fashion. After a very good swim, she pulled ahead with Klimas and Bragmayer. Audrey Merle and Dodet lost time in the water and were forced to run through the field to make it onto the podium. They could not, however, catch their team mate.
With a brilliant all-round performance, Gautier was simply a class apart. Her margin of victory was almost a minute as Merle took silver and Dodet won bronze.
In the men’s race, the winner was another French athlete. Pierre Le Corre put together a classy showing to take the win in style. As an aside he actually has the same military rank as Audrey Merle (Maréchal des logis).
A lead group of eight formed out of the water with a couple of men almost hanging on. The lead group then was sliced to six on the bike. Once the athletes made it onto the run, Le Corre made his move and cruised to victory by 14 seconds.
His team mate Nathan Lessmann won silver but the French were prevented from a sweep of the medals as Noah Servais won bronze.
None of the medallists will be racing at WTCS Yokohama this weekend. Based on the form they showed in Brive, any one of them could have been confident of a good result. After a challenging Olympic distance course in Brive, though, several of the athletes will be grateful to have a weekend to recover.
Some, though, will be travelling on to Yokohama, such as Arnold and Slupek.
In the Mixed Team Relay, France were unsurprisingly dominant as Lessmann, A. Merle, Le Corre and C. Merle teamed up to win by 50 seconds. With three medallists in their starting line up, a win seemed like a foregone conclusion.
The runners-up, Hungary, nonetheless put up a good fight with Kiss and Bragmayer producing great splits. Switzerland ended up in 3rd place.
