The African Cup in Yasmine Hammamet, Tunisia, took place yesterday and served up two contrasting races. Yasmine Hammamet played a notable role in a wider story in 2023 as Tim Hellwig’s win at the race last season propelled him on to high finishes at WTCS Montreal and the Paris Test Event before medalling at the WTCS Final in Pontevedra. The winners of this year’s edition will no doubt be hoping for a similar spike in form.
Men’s race
Evidently keen to ape Hellwig’s 2023 narrative, Henry Graf of Germany claimed the early lead in the water. He would complete the 750m swim in 9:11 and actually put plenty of distance between himself and the field.
Next out was another German, Lukas Merta. Indeed, German athletes monopolised the top five positions (and ten of the top eleven positions) out of the water. If anyone thought Graf would be waiting for them, though, they would have to think again.
Graf ripped into the early stages of the bike to turn an initial 16 second lead into one of half a minute. From there, he did not slow and he time trialled to the fastest split of the day in 28:50. No one else rode under 29:20 and so when Graf arrived in T2 he had the best part of 45 seconds with which to cushion himself.
He took out the run at a hard if slightly more measured tempo than the bike, which was understandable after his efforts. Before long, though, it was clear the game was up. Graf did not have the fastest run split of the day but he did not need it; besides, it possibly would have been greedy to take all three of the top splits. He ran through to victory by 38 seconds and, based on his showing in Tunisia, maybe he will have something bigger in store this summer à la Hellwig.
In the race for silver, the primarily German chase pack that contained Chris Ziehmer, Jonas Osterholt and Fabian Kraft were overwhelmed by a pair of flying Italians. Sergiy Polikarpenko claimed the fastest run of the day from the chase group in 14:04 while Francesco Di Basilico was only a few seconds slower in 14:08. The former would ultimately take the silver medal by 2 seconds over the latter as they broke German hearts in the final stages of the run.
Women’s race
The women’s race was also somewhat of an Italo-German affair. Carlotta Bonacina of Italy was the fastest woman in the first discipline and took the lead into T1 with her time of 10:18. Exiting 7 seconds later was Katharina Möller of Germany.
A lead pack of ten women would eventually come together at the front containing five German atheltes and two Italian athletes. Costanza Arpinelli was the other Italian athlete to join Bonacina. Lara Thekla Ungewickell of Germany claimed the top bike split in the lead group (32:56) as the pack mostly remained together throughout the 20km.
Once onto the run, Arpinelli and Bonacina swiftly took control of the race. Möller and Alzbeta Hruskova of the Czech Republic hung with the Italian duo. As the 5km wore on, though, the Italian pair appeared the more comfortable and had the better finish in store.
Arpinelli’s field-leading run split of 16:17 was enough to defeat Bonacina (16:19) by 3 seconds as Italy sealed a 1-2. Finishing only 4 seconds later, Hruskova managed to pip Möller to the bronze and in doing so denied Italy and Germany a total sweep of the two podiums.
View the full results here.
