The Championship 2022: Wins for Gustav Iden and Sara Perez Sala

Luke Howard May 22, 2022May 22, 2022 Challenge Family

Norway’s Gustav Iden and Spain’s Sara Perez Sala took the top honours at Challenge Family’s The Championship showpiece in Samorin.

The Championship, the flagship event of Challenge Family took place this Sunday 22^nd May featuring many of the world’s best athletes competing for the prestigious victory and €100,000 prize purse.

A strong international men’s pro field lined up that included the late addition of Gustav Iden (NOR) number two in the PTO rankings plus Frederic Funk (DEU), Magnus Ditlev (DEN), Kyle Smith (NZL), Miki Taagholt (DEN) and Pieter Heemeryck (BEL), amongst others.

In the women’s event there was strong competition in the form of defending champion, Lucy Buckingham (GBR), Emma Pallant-Browne (GBR), Amelia Watkinson (NZL), Fenella Langridge (GBR), Daniela Bleymehl (DEU), Sara Perez Sala (ESP) and Ashleigh Gentle (AUS).

The Course

The Championship, based at the renowned Olympic training centre, the x-bionic® sphere sports resort in Samorin, Slovakia is made up of a single loop 1.9km swim takes place in the river Danube while the fast, flat 90km bike travels east along the Danube, through typical Slovak villages in a single loop. The 21.1km is entirely within the x-bionic® sphere complex and is testing due to its multiple surfaces before finishing in front of the main grandstand.

Women Race

No guesses to who exited the water first as last year’s winner Great Britains Lucy Buckingham put in another suburb swim with Spains Sara Perez Sala a close second.

And it was these two who laid down the marker on the bike section building up a 90 second lead on the next two chasers of Britain’s Fenella Langridge and Dutchwomen Sarissa De Vries who had a similar gap on the rest. That is how it remained for this group as they entered T2 with two of the hot favourites Brit Emma Pallant-Browne and Aussie Ashleigh Gentle a massive 7 minutes behind.

Nonetheless, both Gentle and Pallant-Browne were in fine running form, none more so than Pallant-Browne who was storming through the field like a stream train reducing the bike deficit with every stride.

As they were coming near the end of the run it was Pallent-Browne who overtook Langridge and Buckingham to run through into second place. But the tarmac ran out as Sara Perez Sala maintained her lead and crossed the winning tape in a time of 4:08:19 with Pallant-Browne taking second place and last year’s winner Buckingham coming home in third place

PRO womens top five finishers

1. Sara Perez Sala (ESP) – 4:08:19
2. Emma Pallant-Browne (GBR) – 4:10:12
3. Lucy Buckingham (GBR) – 4:11:05
4. Fenella Langridge (GBR) – 4:13:01
5. Ashleigh Gentle (AUS) – 4:15:10

Mens Race

As in the womens race no surprise to anyone to see Slovakia’s Richard Varga and Aussie Josh Amberger setting the pace through the opening 1.9km swim with Varga exiting 20 second ahead of Amberger with the next group of swimmers a further minute behind with the third and final group a further 25 seconds behind with Gustav Iden sitting in the last position.

At this point one would have thought Iden had not fully recovered from his illness which saw him withdrawn from the World Ironman Championships. To make things worse for him he found himself with a flat tyre in T1 and had to make a quick rubber sealant fix.

On to the bike section and a trio made up the front group of Denmark’s Miki Taagholt Belgium’s Pieter Heemeryck and Richard Varga. And these three maintained the lead at the 40k mark. The main chase group included Gustav Iden who puncture fixing skills and his biking prowess had brought him right back in the race some 3 minutes down on the leaders.

The leading trio entered and exited T2 onto the run with Iden and Austria’s Thomas Steger now only 90 seconds behind the leading three. But the Norweign is in a different league when it comes to running and was soon ahead with Steger and Vaga trying to bridge the gap which was just getting bigger by each stride.

By the time the winning line was in sight Iden was in cruise control as he crossed the line in 3:43:44. Last out of the water and a flat tyre to boot, this was quite a remarkable performance by Iden. Vaga so renowned for swimming took second place with a strong run – not something he is so renowned for – and will be over the moon to have held off third place Steger, particularly as he picked up a 30 second penalty for his bike dismount