After going almost two years without a middle-distance podium, Gustav Iden finally found himself back on the top step this weekend, following a brilliant victory at Challenge Turku on Sunday.
The brilliant 28-year-old Norwegian, who has endured a testing time on and off course since his last victory at the IRONMAN World Championship in Kona in October 2022, won by 10 seconds in a thrilling run battle.
After a DNF at IRONMAN 70.3 Marbella, fourth at IRONMAN 70.3 Warsaw and 13th at IRONMAN 70.3 Les Sables, a first victory of the season should be a real boost for the Bergen superstar moving forward.
Making progress on the swim and bike
After exiting the water 90 seconds down on race leader Henry Rappo, Iden found himself in good company in transition as he emerged alongside home favourite Henrik Goesch and Portugal’s Joao Ferreira.
On to the bike, Rappo worked hard up front, and put time into most of the field, with Iden the only athlete gaining ground on the Estonian. At the end of the 90km, Rappo had a 55-second advantage over Iden.
Not one to panic under pressure, Iden kept his cool when Rappo extended his lead to almost two minutes inside the first 10km. With 6km remaining, Iden’s deficit was down to 90 seconds, but that still presented a tall task.
Leaving it late to clinch the win
Up for the challenge, the two-time IRONMAN 70.3 World Champion closed out the run in emphatic fashion, as he passed Rappo with the finish line in sight and prevailed by a handful of seconds to take his first win of the season.
Running a brilliant 1:10:50 half-marathon off the bike, Iden appears to have put the Achilles problems which sidelined him towards the end of last year behind him, and after validating his slot for Kona last month, can now turn his attention to defending his title on the ‘Big Island’ in October.
Agnew claims terrific victory
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 Australian Milan Agnew in fourth.
From that moment on it was Agnew who turned up the heat 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. In the kilometres which followed, the Australian’s lead only increased, running comfortably to 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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