Quarteira European Junior Cup wins for Spain’s Cantero and Moragas
The Spanish Triathlon Federation representatives in the Quarteira Junior European Cup David Cantero and Helena Moragas displayed their run power on Sunday winning the two gold medals in the individual junior events.
The junior girls race saw an unpredictable turn of events. There were numerous Spanish athletes lined up for the beach start with strong swimming pedigree such as Maite Jiménez-Orta, Marta Novo and Elsa Pena as well as the British duo of Beth Cook and Lizzy Edge.
And so, it proved to be as Beth Cook (GB) exited the 750m swim first in 00:10:54 just ahead of Spain’s Elsa Pena with Helena Moragas exiting the water some 35 seconds behind in 24th place.
Out of T1 and onto the 20km bike leg and the chasing pack which included Moragas were making headwind onto the wheels of the front pack and soon connected with them. With a large group now entering and exiting T2 it was all down too who had the legs to run the fastest. 5k
Both GB’s Beth Cook and Lizzy Edge are renown speed merchants over the 5k distance and both began to lay down a marker. However, Moragas was up for the task with running being one of her key disciplines.
It was a close race between the three of them until Moragas managed to make a decisive move at the latter stage of the run which resulted in a sprint finish between the Spaniard and Edge of GB..
The win went to Helena Moragas who took the tape by a cats whisker to win gold for Spain in a time of 01:03;40 with Brit Lizzy Edge taking sliver with the same time 01:03;40 closely followed by Brit Beth Cook taking home the bronze.
Luna De Bruin of the Netherland ran through to take 4th place with commendable 5th place for Great Britain’s Martha Calton-Seal.
In the junior men’s event, the script followed was very similar to that of the women’s race. A small group formed in the swimming leg with the British trio of Ryan Symington, Hugo Jinks and Joe Sherman and Spain’s Miguel Guzmán and Latavi’s Artūrs Liepa heading into T1 first.
And it was this five that made the front pack for the 20km ride section. It was not long though before theses five were absorbed by the large peloton that had gathered behind them which included David Cantero. As they exited T2 onto the 5k run Cantero had moved himself into a top five position and soon took the lead along with the French duo of Léo Fernández and Thomas Hansmaennel.
But it was Cantero who made the decisive move towards the final stage of the run posting the fastest split of 00:15:27. Try as they might the French duo had no answer with David Cantero having the winning smile as the Spaniard ran down the blue carpet to take the win and Spain’s second gold of the day in a time of 00:57:19.
It was Frenchman Thomas Hansmaennel who was take home sliver with his fellow countryman Léo Fernández coming away with the bronze.
Top ten finishes for Great Britain’s Ryan Symington (7th) Solomon Okrafo-Smart (8th) on his international debut and Joe Sherman (10th)..
2022 Europe Triathlon Junior Cup Quarteira
