Alongside the action in Pontevedra, elite events took place elsewhere. Read on to take a look at some of the stories you might have missed from the weekend.
European Mixed Team Relay Club Champs
The European Club Championships were held in La Baule, France, at the weekend. Following the Mixed Team Relay format, each team entered two men and two women. Each leg consisted of a 300m swim, 6.96km bike and a 1.9km run.
After winning the women’s French Grand Prix, Poissy Triathlon came away as the champions.
Their team comprised Jawad Abdelmoula, Candice Denizot, Antoine Duval and Kristelle Congi and they won by 47 seconds. There was a French sweep of the podium as Issy Triathlon took 2nd place and Metz Triathlon finished 3rd.
Denizot and Duval had the best second and third legs, respectively, which went a long way to securing Poissy’s victory. Hector Tolsa Garcia of CEA Batera logged the fastest opening leg, beating Abdelmoula by 5 seconds. Audrey Merle of Issy then had best anchor, beating Congi by 42 seconds.
Balkan Champs
Across Europe, the Balkan Championships were taking place in Bar, Montenegro.
Ognjen Stojanovic of Serbia won the men’s race by 47 seconds. He broke away on bike with Filip Vilenica to build a lead of almost a minute. From there, he would not be stopped in his pursuit of the gold medal.
Junior athlete Alexander Bozhilov finished 2nd. The young Bulgarian actually out-split Stojanovic in T2 and and on the run, but it was not enough to reel in the leader. Péter Benedek then placed 3rd.
Alice Riebler of Italy won the women’s race. Although she lost time in the swim, she rode up to the lead group and from there took control of the race.
Fruzsina Dóra Kovács ended up with the silver medal. The Hungarian athlete was the best runner of the day, splitting 18:28 to Riebler’s 18:59, however she ran out of road to catch Riebler having been in the chase pack.
Nika Rimaj rounded out the podium in 3rd place.
Huys in the Euro road race
Last week, Tabea Huys of Austria came close to winning a medal at the European Cycling Championships. Racing in the Junior women’s time trial, she finished 4th. At the weekend, she was back for the Junior women’s road race.
A crash undermined her day but she dusted herself off and rallied to finish 18th in the Netherlands.
Next year will be Huys’ final season as a Junior. With her cycling prowess clearly on the rise, it will be interesting to see the extent to which she can translate her power into the three sport format.
Moreover, it will be exciting to see how many more triathletes follow her lead and try to tackle two sports internationally in the same season going forwards.
