By IPC

Germany’s Martin Schulz beat the host nation’s Yannick Bourseaux to the men’s PT4 title by a slim four seconds on Sunday (25 May) at the 2014 Besancon ITU World Para-Triathlon event

The German clocked a total time of 54:25, with his strongest portion of the race coming in the final run. Bourseaux finished second in 54:29, with Spain’s Jairo Ruiz Lopez taking third in 56:34.

Seventeen different countries in total were represented by 60 athletes at the event, which was a major jump from the 2013 event — the first in paratriathlon — which featured 48 athletes, 30 of whom were from France.

In the other men’s classes, the Netherlands’ Geert Schipper took the PT1 title (59:32), Italy’s Michele Ferrarin (1:05.34) strode to victory in the PT2, Alessio Borgato (1:00.53) won the PT3 event, and Great Britain’s Haseeb Ahmad (55:28) finished first in the PT5 class.

On the women’s side, Great Britain raced to two titles with paratriathlon star Clare Cunningham setting the tone with a victory in the PT4 class in a time of 1:05.40.

Her teammate Sarah Pearson (1:19:07) finished first in the PT3 event.

Elsewhere, Italy’s Rita Cuccuru (1:19:23) won the PT1, France’s Elise Marc (1:29:00) recorded a victory in the PT2 and Spain’s Susana Rodriguez raced to the title in the PT5.

The next ITU World Para-Triathlon event will take place on Saturday (31 May) in London, Great Britain. The European Championships will take place later this summer from 20-22 June in Kitzbuehel, Austria, ahead of the World Championships, which will take place from 29 August - 1 September in Edmonton, Canada.