The ITU Duathlon World Championships was the opening event on the schedule, to crown the first set of world titles in Pontevedra, Spain.
French athletes dominated racing today, with Benjamin Choquert and Sandra Levenez presented with the World Duathlon Titles in their respective fields.
Emilio Martin celebrated the day with a silver medal and Belgium’s Angelo Vandecasteele, from Belgium, earned the bronze medal. 2018 Duathlon World Champion Sandrina Illes was presented with the silver medal and Garance Blaut from France claimed the bronze.
The men’s field was stacked with international duathlon expertise. The race format consisted of a 10km run (4 laps), 40km bike (6 laps) and 5km run (2 lap). The race started on the athletics track of the High Performance Centre in Pontevedra.
French athletes Benjamin Choquert and Yohan Le Berre made an immediate impact on the race by running away from the rest of the field. The Spaniards, part of the chase group, tried to push hard at the front but the Frenchmen were still looking as smooth as they did in their first lap. They continued to work hard together, taking turns out in front seat, proving that if they kept this pace up they would close the gap and consolidate.
Martin from Spain also took a moment of opportunity to feel the power and breakaway on the steep hill climb. On the final stage of the bike course it was Lloyd from Great Britain who made an impact, breaking away as the men made their way back to the stadium. Lloyd produced a quick transition of the day to hit the final run course of the day.
Martin was presented with a silver medal in front of a Spanish home crowd and Vandecasteele, from Belgium, celebrated on the podium with the bronze medal.
The elite women’s field saw a mix of strong experience line up to race the duathlon alongside the U23 start list The reigning 2018 duathlon world champion Sandrina Illes from Austria lined up to defend her world title.
The top women in the field split the field up in the early stage of the duathlon format, Sandra Levenez, Garance Blaut and Marion Legrand from France as well as Austria’s Illes.
Levenez truly dominated the race today with a powerful run and bike combination. On the closing stages of the race, the French duathlon specialist hit the blue carpet and began to celebrate. Levenez crosses the finish line to earn the 2019 World Champion status.
In the women’s U23 race it was Edymar Daniely Brea from Venezuela who was crowned with the U21 World Duathlon Championship title and Spain’s Marta Pintanel Raymundo produced a silver medal performance in front of a home crowd.