Charles-Barclay dominates 70.3 European Championship Elsinor
George Goodwin takes men's win
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World Triathlon
So much for the expected “close” race between Great Britain’s Lucy Charles-Barclay and 2016 Ironman 70.3 world champion Holly Lawrence – in the end the three-time Kona runner up blasted away from the gun and dominated all three legs of the race to break the four-hour barrier on her way to a five-minute-plus win. The men’s race, on the other hand, was extremely close as another British athlete, George Goodwin, ran his way to the men’s win.
Charles-Barclay’s wire-to-wire win
It’s been an amazing spring and early summer for Charles-Barclay, who bounced back after a frustrating penalty cost her the win at Challenge Miami to a runner-up finish at the Super League Triathlon Arena Games. She followed that up with a runner-up finish at the British Swim Trials in the 1,500 m, then made her WTCS debut in Leeds with a fifth-place finish. That as followed up with a convincing win a the half-distance at the Dorney Lake Triathlon. The roll continued in Elsinore this weekend as the 27-year-old led the way out of the water, opened up more time on the bike and extended her lead over the run to thoroughly dominate the day.
Lawrence, who was coming off a good win at Ironman 70.3 Des Moines last weekend was the only woman able to stay even remotely close to the front, but found herself 55-seconds back after the swim, almost three-minutes down after the bike and over five-minutes behind at the finish line. There was no change in the top-three of the race after the swim, either, as Camilla Pedersen was third throughout the day, too. The Dane was never a threat to the two women ahead of her, though, finishing almost 16 minutes behind the winner.
Charles-Barclay’s 3:59:57 set a new course record in Elsinore and certainly sends a message to the triathlon world that she’s in stellar shape as she looks to finally move one step up the podium in Kona later this year.
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 Women’s results:
- Lucy Charles-Barclay 3:59:57
- Holly Lawrence 4:05:18
- Camilla Pedersen 4:15:51
- Maja Stage-Nielsen 4:16:18
- Susie Cheetham 4:17:24
Related: Olympic dreams – Charles-Barclay not ready to give them up
Goodwin runs his way to European championship
New Zealand’s Kyle Smith led the men out of the water and then blasted away from a stacked chase group that was two-minutes down that included defending champion Rudy Von Berg (USA), former 70.3 world champ Michael Raelert (GER) along with his countrymen Jan Stratmann and Florian Angert, Denmark’s Magnus Ditlev and Sweden’s Jesper Svensson, with Goodwin coming off the bike in 12th, 2:48 behind Smith.
Out on the run course Smith held his lead through the half-way point of the half-marathon – by then Goodwin had moved himself to second, 59-seconds down, just a few seconds up on Stratmann. Goodwin finally managed to take the lead with four km to go and ran his way to the European title, with Von Berg staying close and crossing the line in second 23 seconds behind, 12 seconds ahead of Stratmann, who rounded out the podium.
Men’s Results
- George Goodwin 3:38:58
- Rodolphe Von Berg 3:39:21
- Jan Stratmann 3:39:33
- Filipe Azevedo 3:39:46
- Kyle Smith 3:40:02
