World Triathlon

From duathlon to middle distance and now cross duathlon, Netherlands’ Diede Diedericks showed her remarkable versatility once more on Wednesday afternoon in the sun of San Antonio to take her first multisport world title in Ibiza.

It was a tough Cross Duathlon course that awaited the athletes, a 5.8km opening run coming to an end along the baking beachfront followed by two laps of a 10km mountain bike course that threw a little bit of everything at its competitors, from ramps and chicanes to rock-strewn climbs and snaking, pine-floored switchbacks, all wrapped up with a shade-free 2.5km run to the tape.

It was Diederiks who wasted absolutely no time establishing the pace at the front of the first segment alongside Swiss Anna Zhender before pulling clear on her own over the more technical section.

By the time they emerged back from the headland at the end of the run course, the Dutch talent already had 35 seconds over Slovakia’s Kristina Lapinova now in second and 50 seconds to Carina Wasle and Zehnder.

Spanish duo Enara Oronoz Mateo and Eva Garcia Gonzalez were side-by-side a minute back, Norway’s winter specialist Julie Meinicke leading the U23 field in the heat two minutes back as she worked her way toward transition.

Onto the bike, there was no let up from the Dutch maestro as she conquered the opening stage and then powered through the rocky cliff-front section before heading back down towards transition.

Zehnder was over two minutes back at that stage but found herself a full four minutes adrift by the end of that first lap, albeit secure in second with 90 seconds to Garcia in third. In fact, 90 seconds also separated third to sixth, so as Diedericks overcame a flat tyre on the final descent and then hoovered up the final 2.5km to take an imperious first world title, a battle was raging for the bronze medal.

With Zhender safely home for the silver, it was to be Garcia who came round the final bend and hit the finish chute with precious daylight over Lapinova to secure an excellent bronze, teammate Oronoz completing the top five.

“I’ve only been mountain biking since I was 27, but I love all this stuff,” said a thrilled Diedericks. “I stayed with the Swiss athlete for the first half of the run but when it got a little more technical I was able to get away and then I just really tried to hit the watts on the bike. I got a flat on the second bike lap but it was downhill from there so not too bad, I was able to use it on the corners a bit.”