The 2010 Vitoria-Gasteiz ETU Long Distance Triathlon European Championships in Spain, saw home winners in both elite races today.

As we highlighted in the weekend preview, Eneko Llanos has been in a rich vein of form this year and as expected walked off with another title to add to his glittering CV, which includes three XTERRA World Championships. Out of the swim in the lead pack, he made it back to T2 in a trio with Martin Jensen (DEN) and countryman Peru Alfaro San Ildefonso. These three athletes had a huge 10 minute lead on the nearest of the chasers, and so the medal positions looked all but secure heading into the 30km run.

Llanos broke away on the first of the run laps, building close to a one minute lead on Jensen, while Ildefonso was fading.

Llanos held that lead to the finish in confident style, eventually finishing 1:27 clear of Jensen. Ildefonso appears to have finished third initially, but is then shown as a DQ. We'll try and update the details where we can, though Jimmy Johnson appears to be the 'official' bronze medal winner.

Britain's hope for victory here was reigning ITU World Long Distance Champion Jodie Swallow. Jodie's title was over a 3k/80k/20k distance, but this would be by far her longest race to date at 4k/120k/30k, with Hawaii third place finisher Virginia Berasategui (ESP) the pre race favourite on home soil - though we did hope for a Swallow victory in our preview!

No surprise that Jodie lead the swim, a full three minutes ahead of Berasategui. The Spanish athlete reversed that on the bike however, her 3:10:59 split over 11 minutes quicker than Swallow (3:21:20), resulting in a seven+ minute buffer beginning the 30km run. Jodie did make progress on the run - at one stage wiping out over half of that deficit, but the experienced Berasategui came home to victory on home soil with a 4:16 margin on Swallow.

In winning silver, Jodie gained the scalps - by a significant margin - of experienced and successful iron-distance athletes such at Lisbeth Kristensen (DEN), Martina Dogana (ITA) and Edith Niederfriniger (ITA) amongst several others. Jodie recently expressed her goals as complete focus on London 2012 - though she clearly has the talent and ability to 'go long' too. It will be interesting to see what path she follows over the next 18 months as there are a number of career paths open to her.

Further news - including updates on the GB Age Group team - will follow later today.

Provisional results are available HERE.

Provisional Podium Positions

Nicholas Ward Munoz (11th, 6:09:47) and Nick Saunders (20th, 6:41:31) were the GB elite team finishers for the men.