James Teagle (GB) Scorches the Field to Claim Victory at Challenge Gdnask
In the fiery summer heat In the Polish city of Gdansk, James Teagle (GB) torched the field of athletes with his pace in the final leg of the run crossing the finishing line triumphantly in a time of 03:46:14 to win the ‘Battle of the Baltic’ inaugural LOTTO ChallengeGdnask.
Challenge Family put its newest PRO race on the calendar over the weekend, June 20, 2021, in the city of Ganask in Poland. This new event has an iconic location next to the Baltic Sea in which there is a 1.9km swim, a lightning-fast 90km bike section and a 21.1km run course that takes athletes along beautiful Gdansk coastline with a breath-taking finish on the beautiful city pier.
Ex-short course GB international athlete turned long-distance triathlete, James Teagle won through the day in the men’s race making a mark on a Pro field that included the likes of Spaniard Pablo Dapena Gonzalez (Silver medallist at both Challenge Gran Canaria and Challenge Riccione) and South African Matt Trautman (winner of Challenge Almere-Amsterdam in 2019). It was the Spaniard who came out of water ahead of Teagle and Trautman in 3rd place behind two local heroes in Poland’s Tomasz Brembor and the clear front swimmer Lukasz Wojt who was back on the beach in a quick time of 00:22:21.
Out of T1 and onto the 90km bike course and Wojt held his lead at the 16km mark but now only 1 minute behind were a group of five riders closing him down. At the 30km mark Wojt was still leading but the gap narrowing all the time and by half-way Wojt had company in the shape of Teagle, Dapena Gonzalez, Trautman, Franz Loschke (GDR) and Henrick Goesch (FIN). This group of six were 2 minutes ahead of the rest and continued to build the lead as they rode into T2.
First off, the bike was Teagle with Dapena Gonzalez and Trautman hot on his heels. A super-fast transition saw Teagle take a 20 second lead in the start of the 21.1k run with Dapena Gonzalez and Trautman trying to play catch-up. At the 12k mark it was very clear who was dominating the run with Teagle building up a lead of 00:01:43 as both Dapena Gonzalez and Trautman were both struggling to hold the pace. Teagle was almost gliding round the run course as he kept extending his lead over Trautman who had now made daylight between him and Dapena Gonzalez with Goesch moving up to 4th
.As the little LOTTO balls lined the finishing straight to welcome the winner it was James Teagle they were cheering as his took a triumphant win and Gold in a time of 03:45:41. A couple minutes later Trautman crossed the line to take Silver in 03:48:19 (+02:04) with Bronze going to Dapena Gonzalez in 02:49:21 (+03:07).
This was a perfect end to a perfect few months for Teagle and a real breakthrough having impressed at Challenge Gran Canaria coming 8th and more recently coming 3rd at the PTO sponsored Dorney Lake Long-Distance race as he continues his fine form over the longer distance.
