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Anne Haug takes PTO July Athlete of the Month

Ground-breaking performance in Roth seals prestigious PTO award

Photo by: PTO

When you shatter the world-best time and come within a couple of minutes of breaking the previously unheard of 8-hour barrier, it should hardly be a suprise that you’d be named the athlete of the month, right?

Germany’s Anne Haug did just that in July, winning Challenge Roth in a world-best 8:02:38, while running the second-fastest marathon of the day – a blazing 2:38 effort.

Anne Haug shatters world best time and almost breaks 8 hours at Challenge Roth

“It’s a real honour, which I’m super proud of; considering all the amazing performances we’ve seen the whole year,” Haug said of the award. “It’s just great to witness the development of our sport and have the opportunity to be part of it for almost 19 years now.”

While Haug looks for another Ironman World Championship title (she won in Kona in 2019) in Nice in September, she’s also part of the T100 Triathlon World Tour.

“This series means a lot to the sport of triathlon,” Haug said. “It’s the perfect mixture of short course and long course and I love the speed. It’s also nice to have more races where you constantly compete with the best in the world. It allows you to improve yourself as an athlete – you have to face the best possible competition to get the best out of yourself and to have it more often in the year benefits everyone. It’s just been a shame I wasn’t able to race much in the first half of the season.”

Haug was sick for the early part of the year, then competed at Ironman Lanzarote in May, where she broke Paula Newby-Fraser’s long-standing course record.

Anne Haug shatters 29-year-old record at Ironman Lanzarote

Triathlon Magazine was part of the triathlon media panel (along with Global Triathlon Network (GTN), Tri-Mag.de and Triathlete) that voted on the award. Triathlon fans also voted through the T100 social media. Other athletes in the running for the award included Magnus Ditlev (DEN), the men’s champion from Roth, along with Australia’s Ashleigh Gentle and France’s Sam Laidlow, the winners of T100 London.