Nicola Spirig and Alistair Brownlee are not the only olympian champions competing at the European Championships in Kitzbühel. The 2000 olympic champion Brigitte McMahon added another gold medal to her collection on Friday. The Swiss triathlete, gold medallist at the Sydney olympic triathlon for Switzerland, won her 45-49 age group in a splendid time of 1h14'29, finishing 4th overall. It was only one of the highlights of a tight sprint race.

In the women race Sandra Koblmüller was the fastest age grouper overall. She led the Austrian ladies to a total number of 5 gold medals, levelling the home country with Team GB who dominated the +55 categories. Switzerland won the remaining two gold medals.

Germany's Hannes Müller had the fastest split times of all men, winning him gold in the 20-24 category. The home crowd was extremely pleased with the strong Austrian Norbert Domnik, who not only won his 50-54 category, but who came in 13th overall in an incredible time of 1h07'14. It was one of three gold medals for Austria on the sprint distance. Germany collected 4 gold medals, Switzerland and Team GB won two times gold and Isacco Andronucci and Mitja Mori put Italy and Slovenia on the gold medal table.

Despite the rain and the cold weather conditions we saw all smiling faces from 254 women and 514 men.

Check out the full results here

More age group pictiures can be found on our facebook page

By Hans Cleemput