Last Sunday, August 16, with the support of the Riga City Council, the annual and prestigious Riga Triathlon with the European Cup Juniors and the Baltic Championships for adults in the super sprint distance (375m + 12.5km + 3.2km) was held in Mežaparks in excellent weather conditions, which was the first international competitions in Europe.
In the Baltic Women’s Championship, where four participants of the Olympic Games took part, the Belgian Valerija Bartalemī, who was in the top three of the World Cup, won, but the best of us was Daniela Leitāne, who won 7th place. In the European Cup for juniors, the best result among our boys was achieved by Artūrs Liepa, who entered the top ten in the competition of 24 athletes and won the 9th place, informs the representative of the organizers Ivars Bācis.
The weekend was already over eighth Riga triathlon, which for the first time moved from the center of the capital to Mežaparks. For the fifth year in a row, juniors competed in the European Cup in the framework of the Riga Triathlon, but for the second time the Baltic Championship took place, where four participants of the Olympic Games competed – Claire Michel from Belgium, Gillian Sanders from South Africa, Julia Yelstratova from Ukraine and Kaidi Kiviana from Estonia. The participants swam in Ķīšezers, rode a bike along the paths of Mežaparks, but finished running at the foot of the Grand Stage.
The main favorite in the European Cup was a convincing victory for juniors – the vice-champion of the 2018 Youth Olympic Games and the silver medalist of the 2017 European Junior Championship Sifa Madsen from Denmark, who was in 4th place after swimming, but with no convincing best time in cycling and running competitors, celebrating their second victory in their second start in the European Junior Cup. The Dane showed 36:23 and was three minutes ahead of the second place winner and fastest swimmer Marta Kropko from Hungary, who last year won silver at the World Championships in aquatonics and with a second place in Riga won a full set of prizes in the European Junior Cup. In just 9 seconds, the Hungarians gave in to the best of the three strongest and equal Spaniards, Elsa Pene Vincente, who won first place in the European Cups. Estonian Mari Rūsa, who won sixth place in a competition of this level in her debut, was the only Baltic representative in the top six. In turn, the best of our girls was Darya Belevich, who took the 11th place in her debut in competitions of this level. The biggest hopes from us were related to this year’s junior champion Christian Moscow, who was in fifth place after swimming, but unfortunately the tire punctured in cycling did not allow her to fight for eighth and had to finish in 12th place, ahead of our third representative Eliza Zvigulis.
For women In the Baltic Championship, where in addition to the three representatives of the Baltic States, triathletes from several other countries took part, both Belgian Valerija Bartalemī and Claire Michel took the lead after swimming, and they worked well together, not only approaching the trio of followers – Julia Yelstratova, Kaidi Kivioja and Gilliana Sanders, but even increasing the lead to just over a minute. Thus, even before the run, it was clear that Belgium would win twice. This time he was faster in Bartalemi, who won the third place in the World Cup three times, but Michelle, who was in the top three in the World Cup seven times, who finished 4th in the European Cup in Riga five years ago, finished 21 seconds behind his teammate. The participant of three Olympic Games (the best result is the 24th place in Beijing in 2008) Demonstrated his mastery in running, Yelistratova, who finished third, conceding the winner by a minute and eight seconds. Kivioja, the 44th place winner of the Rio Olympic Games, also ran well, but the Estonian, who was the best among the representatives of the Baltic States, was 11 seconds short of the podium in the overall standings. Meanwhile, only the South African Sanders remained in fifth place, who has the highest place in the Olympic Games of all participants – 19th and 23rd place.
Among our three representatives, after swimming with the 7th time, the highest among 11 participants was Patricia Ozola, who was caught by Daniela Leitāne in cycling. In the race, Daniela failed to catch the Lithuanian Inga Paplauska, but the Latvian vice-champion defended the seventh position, being the best of ours. Meanwhile, the best Latvian triathlete Baiba Medene, who did not have one of the successful days, overtook Ozola and climbed to the 9th place.
For juniors The boys gave a very good start to Artūrs Lieps, who was again good at swimming, coming out of the lake as the fifth, a few seconds after the first four. However, the Dane, the German and two Spaniards started a very fast pace at the beginning of cycling, which the Latvian junior champion could not keep up with in the sprint, thus remaining in the chasing group, where together with Artūrs Sandis Korņijenko from Daugavpils was also the state Junior Champion in super sprint. Artūrs started running in seventh place, but in three laps around the stage the Danes and Swiss had to run in front and finish two minutes behind the winner in 9th place, being the best among the representatives of the Baltic States and entering the top ten in the European Cups for the first time. Danila Proščinko, who ran fast and gave a junior champion in the Olympic distance a week ago in Ventspils. Thirteen seconds later, Kornijenko arrived at the finish line as the sixteenth, but the twentieth was closed by 16-year-old Kristaps Dūzis, who spent two minutes more in the distance than Liepa.
From the leaders’ quartet, after the cycling, the German Henrijs Grafs showed a great pace in the final 3km run, which allowed the 9th place winner to celebrate the victory in the youth Olympic Games in Mežaparks, spending 33:26 in the distance. Last year’s European Youth Championship Festival winner Igor Bellido Mihailova from Spain ran 19 seconds later and entered the European Cup for the second time in his career, but meanwhile the Danish Valdemārs Soloks won his first prize with the third result (+0: 28).
For men The victory in the Baltic Championship was won by the Ukrainian Yegor Martinenko, who had won the European Cup six times so far. Estonian Henry Repo, who won the European Junior Cup within the framework of the Riga Triathlon three years ago, lost his breath in the back of Ukraine all the time and lost only 6 seconds at the finish. In another similar duel, Scott McClimont, representing Germany for third place, was six seconds faster than Estonian Kevisn Vabaorg. Meanwhile, a torn tire in cycling led to the resignation of our adult group leader Artyom Gayevsky, who was sixth after swimming and was able to compete for a place in the top five.
The Latvian Triathlon Federation is glad that the Riga Triathlon is becoming more and more popular from year to year, with an increasing number of supporters, but our main friend, as always, is the Riga City Council. Thanks also to other reliable supporters – “Volkswagen” Moller auto “Airport”, “Giant!”, “Venden”, “Kronis”, “SMScredit.lv”, “Charlot”, Latvian Sports Federation Council, “Good Prizes”, “Dobeles miller ”and many others. Also a big thank you to everyone who supports the participants of the competition so that the triathlon in Latvia continues to develop.
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