Gomez and Verstuyft win Challenge Prague titles

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Challenge Prague
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Another podium for Laura Siddall in the Czech Republic

Sixth for Kimberley Morrison on a borrowed bike

Saturday’s Challenge Prague saw a clash of world champions in the Pro men’s race, with reigning IRONMAN 70.3 World Champion Javier Gomez facing his compatriot, and recent ITU Long Distance Triathlon World Championship winner, Pablo Dapena Gonzalez.

Dapena Gonzalez has been in fine form this year and racing many of the Challenge Family races and he, along with Pieter Heemeryck (BEL) were separated by just seconds after the swim and bike. All change from there, as Gomez (1:13:48) coped with the hot conditions on the run to take a six minute victory over Dapena (1:19:54 half marathon).

There were pre-race challenges for GB’s Kim Morrison, who’s bike didn’t arrive in time for the race, but was able to start on a borrowed bike. She didn’t let that stop her manage to gain a small lead by T2, but in a close race, she had several chasers within a few minutes.

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Katrien Verstuyft (BEL) – winner of 70.3 Weymouth last year – would come out on top, her 1:28:20 run in the hot conditions the fifth fastest of the day, with the quickest run (1:25:27) coming from Kirsty Jahn (CAN), which enabled her to pass Challenge Family Ambassador on super-consistent Brit, Laura Siddall (1:27:11), who added more points to her 2018 Challenge Family Series rankings.

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Champagne showers – the biggest bottle and at least I can win the champagne stakes! . Just grateful, yesterday to make it to the end of the race, and I’ll definitely take the podium in that race. Great running by @kirstyjahntri to run me down in the past few km’s and as we both just ran out of road to catch the leader but congrats to Katrien Verstuft who raced a great race to keep us at bay and take the win. . The way I’ve been feeling the past few weeks, I’m just thankful to finish and even more so to be on the podium. Several times during the race, I was going to pull the pin, I reassessed my race season, travel plans, and pretty much everything else… at times I just wanted to jump on a plane and get home to my family. . In the end glad I stuck it out and that after the first few horrendous kilometres on the run… some legs eventually decided to turn up. Never give up and never surrender. . . . #dontdiewondering #europeanadventures #chasingsummer #challengefamily #inpursuitofexcellence #challengeprague

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Challenge Prague – Saturday 28th July 2018
1.9km / 90km / 21km

PRO Men

1st – Javier Gomez (ESP) – 3:44:40
2nd – Pablo Dapena Gonzalez (ESP) – 3:50:53
3rd – Pieter Heemeryck (BEL) – 3:51:55

9th – George Goodwin (GBR) – 4:04:15

PRO Women

1st – Katrien Verstuyft (BEL) – 4:21:30
2nd – Kirsty Jahn (CAN) – 4:22:03
3rd – Laura Siddall (GBR) – 4:22:21


6th – Kimberley Morrison (GBR) – 4:25:49
8th – Chantal Cummings (GBR) – 4:29:13

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