2022 Europe Triathlon Cup Poland …Pauger (AUS) wins with Willis (GB) to the fore
Strength and endurance across all three disciplines was the order of the day as Austria’s Leon Pauger took the win in the prestigious Europe Triathlon Cup Rzeszow, with the natural talent of Jack Willis coming to the fore to take sliver and a well-earned spot on the podium.
Raced over the sprint distance the depth of field in the men’s race saw a snake like procession of athletes exiting the water with the Aussie Chris Deegan out first but with another 10 athletes including Pauger and Willis all exiting within 8 seconds of each other.
Two of the favourites, seasoned Olympian Rostislav Pevtsov of Azerbaijan and last week’s European Championship silver medallist Barclay Izzard of Great Britain – both speed merchants on the run – found themselves with time to make up as they headed to T1.
Out onto the 20k bike section and a formidable front pack formed with the Austrians Tjebbe Kandli and Pauger really pushing the pace with Czech Republic’s Radim Grebík, Great Britain’s Willis and Germany’s Johannes Vogel hot on their back wheels. This group were starting to make a considerable time gap that the runners in the race were going to find hard to bridge.
On to the 5k run and it was the trio of Pauger, Willis and Vogel who took the run section by the horns and controlled it from the front. Although Pevtsov and Izzard had not given up and were running through the field at a devasting pace along with Jorik Van Egdom of the Netherlands, but all to no avail as the lead trio were insight of the blue carpet with Pauger running through to cross the line in a time of 00:55:30 with Willis coming in second place only seven seconds behind and Vogel rounding of the podium taking third spot.
Pevtsov with the fastest run of the day had to settled for 4th place with Izzard only two seconds slower on the run making it into the top ten with a 7th place.
Great Britains other representative Cameron Harris put in a solid performance coming 34th in a field of 62 athletes.
Results can be found here:
