Gustav Iden recorded his first victory of the season today in a thrilling race at Challenge Turku. In the women's race, no one was strong enough to keep an unleashed Milan Agnew from her first professional win.
After the swim, it was Henry Räppo (EST) who led out of the water in the men’s race six seconds ahead of Frederick Webb (GBR) and Rinel Plus (EST). However, race favourites Henrik Goesch (FIN), Iden and Joäo Ferreira (POR) came out of the water just under a minute and a half behind with time to make up to have a chance at victory.
Those who might have thought that these men would ride straight to the front were deceived. Räppo rode so strongly that he managed to increase his lead over everyone except Iden. Still, the Norwegian did not manage to close the gap to the front: he closed to just over a minute behind and only in the final kilometres of the bike did he win some more seconds back. Once in T2, Iden was 55 seconds behind Räppo, so the half marathon promised to be not only decisive, but also exciting.
Räppo started the run strongly and saw his lead increase to almost two minutes in the first 10km. For a while it looked like victory was his, but Iden had other plans and with 6km to go had closed the gap one and a half minutes. Those 6km proved to be the deciding factor and just before the finish, Iden passed Räppo and took the win in 3:36:01. Räppo finished second in 3:36:12 and Ferreira third in 3:39:18.
In the women's race, the eventual winner also started the bike with a deficit. The swim was dominated, as expected, by Sara Perez Sala (ESP), who grabbed three-quarters of a minute ahead of Iida Reini (FIN) and Maaike Vooren (NED), and a significant 3:46 minutes ahead of Agnew in fourth.
From that moment on it was Agnew who opened the throttle on the bike and pushed the pace considerably. Slowly but surely she moved up into the field, eventually joining Perez Sala and also Reini. This put the trio in the lead and that would not change until T2.
When Agnew started the half marathon at a high pace, Perez Sala was unable to follow and her deficit grew rapidly. Reini tried to stay with Agnew for a while, but she too had to acknowledge that Agnew was by far the strongest today. In the kilometres that followed, the Australian's lead only increased, running comfortably to a victory Challenge Turku victory in 4:03:16. Reini finished second in 4:06:07 and Perez Sala finished third in 4:07:18.
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For further information, visit www.challenge-turku.com