Following a successful race for the Juniors in Riga last weekend, the focus moves this weekend to Tábor in the South Bohemian region of the Czech Republic.
Back in 2010 the women’s winner was Belgium’s athlete Sophie Hooghe. For the men Andrey Bryukhankov lost out to Namibian Abrahm Louw. We will see Bryukhankov in Rio later this year. In 2011 the gold went to Austria’s Sara Vilic. She too will be in Rio. It was Alois Knabl who made it an Austrian double by taking gold for the men. 2012 was Sarah Wilm’s golden day as Germany celebrated with three finishers in the top five. For the men, Kristian Blummenfelt powered ahead to beat GB’s Gordon Benson. Both athletes will meet in Rio this year. A rest of two years gave the LOC a chance to re-develop their event and they came back in 2015 bigger and better. Jana Macháčová CZE was to top the podium with Kazakhstan’s Ayan Beisenbayev sharing that position in the men’s race.
A list of names that are familiar and amongst them, our Olympians. Tábor has provided the athletes with a safe and fair course to race upon and once more this year the event will welcome athletes from all over Europe.
The swim course will cover 750m in the oldest dam lake in Europe. It was back in 1492 that a dam was built to ensure that the town had plentiful supplies of drinking water. Lake Jordán has not been drained since 1830 and is the focal point for many during the summer months. The 20k bike course is on closed roads around the city and although undulating it is also a technical course that will favour the stronger biker. The two laps of the bike will deliver the athletes to T2 for the three-lap 5k run that again downtown with the finish in the main square.
Who will be racing this weekend?
55 athletes from 13 nations will be going for medals and points. The Junior Athletes win points for their federation and at the end of the year the top three national federations are presented with a substantial cheque from ETU that can be used for future development.
The Junior Rankings can be seen here.
First out onto the pontoon will be Slovenia’s Eva Skaza. Her swim to run strength was seen in Châteauroux where she took the Aquathlon title. She will be up against Austria’s Theresa Feuersinger and two of Hungary’s strongest juniors, Flóra Bicsák and Dorka Putnóczki whose strength in the water was seen again and again this season, most notably in Tiszaújváros. Her silver in the Junior European Cup there will give her all the encouragement to race hard this weekend. Czech hopes will lie with Lucíí Obermannová who placed in the top ten place last week in Riga. She will be battling for honours against Simona Šimůnková who took the bronze in Riga and is currently the ETU Junior Aquathlon champion. So we should see some strong racing and hopefully cooperation between the Czech Junior Women.
Great to see a big start list. This will be exciting!
For a full start list, please click here.
The men have a big start list too and at present we see 77 athletes from 16 nations with two athletes coming from outside Europe. Watch out for Colombian Eduardo Londoño Naranjo. He took a bronze in Tábor last year and is back now to see if he can improve, especially after his Riga silver last weekend that saw him dominate the swim. Oscar Coggins HNK will be wearing #1 but he will find it tough against the line-up of race-fit Europeans, amongst them and from Hungary Bence Lehman. His speed in the water, alongside Tizzy winner Gergő Soós suggests a leading group out of the water between Colombia and Hungary. Maxime Flury SUI, also fired up from the Tizzy Festival will hope to find a place in that lead group and perhaps to work with Lukas Gstaltner AUT who is probably still buzzing after his Riga bronze.
For a full start list, please click here.
We are hoping that regular updates will appear on the event Facebook Page.
Have a great race !