by Hans Cleemput

'I decided to make it a very long sprint,” Laura Lindemann told us right after her big win at the junior women European Championships. The German girl beat the two French stars Audrey Merle and Cassandre Beaugrand in a tight race.

Lindemann had a perfect race, taking the lead after the swim together with Maya Kingma (NED), Sophie Coldwell (GBR) and Tereza Zimovjanova (CZE), Angelica Olmo (ITA), Therese Feuersinger (AUT), Audrey Merle (FRA), Ditte Kristensen (DEN) and Carmen Gomez (ESP). Cassandre Beaugrand was the last girl to close the gap.

The lead pack of 10 was reduced to 8 when Kingma and Zimovjanova dropped off during the 3rd bike lap. Portugal and Italy were working hard in the chase pack but they did not manage to decrease the gap. In T2 the pack was trailing by 1’35.

In the first run lap Merle and Beauregard were running side by side with Lindemann but in the last km Laura started to speed up and raced her way to gold. Merle took the silver for France, while Beaugrand completed the podium for „Les Bleus”.

Of course Laura Lindemann was satisfied with her European title. 'I am so happy to win here”, she said. 'It was pretty hard out there, but generally the whole race went according to plan. I had a great swim and we worked hard in front of the lead pack. The French girls were pretty strong on the run and therefore I decided to make it a very long sprint.”

Ditte Kristensen took 4th place and Carmen Gomez managed to stay ahead of Sophie Coldwell for 5th. Therese Feuersinger was the 1st home athlete in 8th place.

It was also great to see the Romanian junior girls racing for the first time at the European Championships. Romania is the youngest ETU member. Antonela Manac and Andrea Balan had a though day. 'It was hard for us today, but this was our very first time at the Europeans and we were happy to be here”, said Antonela. 

Full results here