Europe Triathlon Cup Rzeszów results 2022: Pauger and Daniels win

The sixth Europe Triathlon Cup event of the 2022 season took place in Rzeszów, Poland on Saturday afternoon.

Keeping up with all of the previous events to date – Lievin, Quarteira, Melilla, Yenişehir, Caorle – the event was broadcast live. Yes, you had to hunt around on YouTube to find it, and with a fraction of the budget doubtless used on Sunday near Dresden for Sub7Sub8, but for the effectively the third tier of draft-legal racing, I think kudos again for making those efforts for what is clearly a very niche audience.

Elite Men

The Elite Men saw a notable split happen during the 20km bike course, with seven athletes getting away from a chase group of nine.

Radim Grebik (CZE) was particularly brave and managed to get himself a seven-second start from that lead group, and he would be rewarded with sixth place some 5km of running later.

The battle for the win came down to Great Britain’s Jack Willis and Austria’s Leon Pauger. The Brit, who raced recently at the World Triathlon Cup Arzachena, pushed the pace at the front before Pauger bridged back. They were well clear of Johannes Vogel (GER) in third.

Pauger made his move deep inside the final kilomtere and ran clear to victory, his second at European Cup level after winning two years ago in Olzsztyn. Clearly an Austrian who likes racing in Poland.

For Willis, that also represented a best performance to date at senior level in Europe Triathlon Cup racing.

Elite Women

Following a similar theme to the men’s race, nine athletes would reach T2 in Poland in close order. That pack included all of the athletes who would fill the top five positions.

Cathia Schär (SUI) recently took the U23 European title as well as finishing third overall at the European Championships in Olsztyn. She was first into T2, first out onto the run and from there it looked as though she would continue her run of success.

Making up her six-second deficit starting the run however was Eva Daniels (LUX), who raced earlier this year to seventh place at the Arena Games Triathlon Finals in Singapore. Daniels moved into the lead starting the second (or two) run laps, and held strong over that closing 2.5km to take the win despite a late effort from Schär.