Norway’s Gustav Iden is Victorious at CHALLENGE-DAYTONA®
A star studded men’s field was aligned at Challenge Daytona to see who would take the inaugural men’s PTO World Championship title. Olympian’s and World Champions in both short course and long racing were all vying for the title and it was a race that did not disappoint!
Mens race review below:
Swim:
The race had a ferocious start, with the top ITU cohort as expected establishing themselves at the front of the pack, including Henri Schoeman, Vincent Luis, Javier Gomez and Alistair Brownlee.
The race was expected to spread out on the swim with a mixture of long and short course athletes racing and that’s exactly how it panned out.
South African and Olympic bronze medalist Schoeman led on the first lap, however, it was to be a large group of men who exited the water on the first lap with him. Brit’s Adam Bowden and Thomas Davis were also featured at the back end of the front group on the first lap.
Come the end of the swim Schoeman was still leading and the gaps had remained much the same in front and behind as he extited in 22.24. The short course guys showed their dominance on this discipline of the race with former Ironman World Champion Sebastian Kienle sitting 1 minute back.
Recent Canadian 1 hour record holder Lionel Saunders was out of the water in 63rd and he would have to put in a strong bike to feature later on in the race.
Bike:
Out of the first transition was Alistair Brownlee who was onto the bike for the first of twenty 4km laps totalling 80km followed closely by Luis. The two athletes created a small gap to the likes of Schoeman, Gomez and Germany’s Florian Agnert who would soon move into 3rd place on lap two of the bike closing the gap to the two and pulling the rest of the field behind him back up.
Luis had been riding questionably close to Alistair Brownlee at the start of the bike and this would cause him to pick up a two minute time penalty. GB’s Jonny Brownlee also had the same fate and they would have to wait to the run to take them.
On lap four American Ben Kanute put down some power moving through past Brownlee to lead the race.
Norway’s Gustav Iden who sat in 22nd out of the water and was quickly passing athletes sitting in 15th by the end of lap 6 of the bike section.
Most of the men at the front settled at this point, whilst the long distance athlete were unknowingly coming through strong from behind with the likes of Sam Long, Lionel Saunders and George Goodwin moving past athlete after athlete.
23 year old Magnus Ditlev, the youngest athlete in the field was perhaps showing himself to be the strongest biker in the filed gliding past athletes in his wake.
Over the final 7 laps the race dramatically changed with all of the long course athletes catching up to the front and many athletes at the front starting to blow up. Sanders was certainly one to watch at this point.
By the end there was a large group of men that came into transition all following Alistair Brownlee.
Run:
Most athletes looked as though they were struggling out of the second transition and everything was set up to see who could get through the pain after an incredibly leg aching bike section.
Brit’s Davis and George Goodwin were very much in the mix at this point.
Ditlev paid slightly for his previous efforts on the bike, cramping up early on.
The race took a turn when leader Alistair Brownlee stopped running because of a pulled calf, essentially putting himself out of the race for the title.
Other athletes took advantage of this and it was Norway’s Iden who would pass by Schoeman and Sam Long to become the new race leader and suddenly open up a significant gap.
Gustav Iden would make this gap and maintain this gap through to the finish and take the tape in 3.05.06, with Matt Hansen having a storming second two laps to work his way through to 2nd and George Goodwin an incredible 3rd place, showing us he is the new up and coming ‘youngster’ in the long distance game.
Full Results here
