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Hamburg, Germany: Once again the crowds came out in force in preparation for
what was billed to be a spectacular race. Over 200,000 people took to the streets of Hamburg today to cheer on
their local boys and hope that they could see a repeat performance of Anja Dittmer’s comfortable win yesterday in the elite
women’s event.
Although
the field was weakened due to many post-Olympic commitments, over forty
athletes lined the dive start from the Jungfesnstieg
into the Alster River.
Volodymyr Polikarpenko
of the Ukraine, Seth Wealing of the USA, Stephane
Poulat of France and Rasmus Henning of Denmark made quick progress
in the swim, pulling away from the large pack in the early stages of the
swim. At the end of the first swim
lap, the leaders were joined by Kris Gemmell of New Zealand. There was no surprise when Polikarpenko began to stretch out the field on the second
lap and it was a familiar site to see the big Ukrainian coming out ahead of
the pack into the first transition. Polikarpenko who was followed closely by Poulat. Local boy
Andreas Raelert was twenty seconds behind the rest
of the field as they jockeyed for position out of transition one.
Filip Ospaly of the Czech Republic took the lead at the
front of a very powerful bike group that included danger men like Rasmus Henning, Chris Hill and Polikarpenko.
Although Hamburg has one of the
flattest courses on the circuit, the big pack at the front appeared cautious
as it completed the first 2 laps of the 8 lap, 40km bike course.
Laurent
Vidal of France tired of the
lumbering pace of the big pack as he initiated the first of many to breakaways
off the front. Christien
Weimer, one of the many talented German competitors in field went with Vidal,
as did Italy’s Andrea D'Aquino
The
trio at the front held off the huge chase pack until Polikarpenko
and Germany’s Stephan Justus hauled
the big group up to the leaders. At
the moment that the leaders were caught Poland’s Marek Jaskolka and Steffen Justus
broke off the front and got away from the big pack. The pair built up a small lead and held off
the pack through the 4th lap to the delight of the home country
crowd.
By
the start of the 5th lap everyone was back together as Sebastien Dehmer made a break and
was soon joined by Seth Wealing and Christian Ruderer of Germany. They seemed to have managed a serious
breakaway until the 7th lap when they were finally caught by the
pack.
Andreas
Raelert of Germany, just coming off a 6th
place finish on the challenging Athens Olympic Games course was the next to
break from the pack and Maik Petzold
and Allessandro De Gasperi
of Italy were smart enough to go with him.
By the bell lap they had a 55 second gap on the big pack – an amazing
achievement. The gap on the chase
group grew to 1:20 before they reached
the bike to run transition.
The
roar from the stadium when Maik Petzold
exited the bike to run transition first must have had an effect on the Reichter Scale, as hopes soared for a repeat of the young
German’s victory at the Salford World Cup.
De
Gasperi was second out of transition and for the
first 5km ran side-by-side with Petzold. New Zealand’s Kris Gemmel was the first one from the chase group onto the
run course.
A
glance at the splits after the first lap sent a chill through the crowd as
they realised that the Great Dane, Rasmus Henning, was
closing in on their hometown hero at the front.
The
view from the big screen showed Henning zooming in on the leaders, and by the
6km mark the deed was done. Henning
romped home charged by the roars from the crowd who had now adopted him as
their second cousin.
Petzold and De Gasperi ran out
of gas on the last lap and were passed by a quartet charging up from the big
pack, including Filip Ospaly,
Kris Gemmell, Volodymyr Polikarpenko and Sabastien Dehmer.
Rasmus Henning made the win look like child’s play, but
it was a different story for Polikarpenko and Ospaly who delighted the crowd with a sprint to the line
to complete the podium. Kris Gemmell was 4th as the 3 German team-mates of Dehmer, Justus and Petzoid
finished 5th to 7th respectively.
The
Hamburg event was part of a superb
weekend of World Cup action.
Triathlon
World Cup action resumes in Madrid September 19th,
when once again all the action will be covered on www.triathlon.org
Top 10 results:
|
1. |
Henning |
Rasmus |
DEN |
1:47.41,5 |
|
2. |
Ospaly |
Filip |
CZE |
1:47.55,9 |
|
3. |
Polikarpenko |
Volodymyr |
UKR |
1:47.58,1 |
|
4. |
Gemmell |
Kris |
NZL |
1:48.07,4 |
|
5. |
Dehmer |
Sebastian |
GER |
1:48.12,6 |
|
6. |
Justus |
Steffen |
GER |
1:48.26,1 |
|
7. |
Petzold |
Maik |
GER |
1:48.33,3 |
|
8. |
D'Aquino |
Emilio |
ITA |
1:48.37,4 |
|
9. |
De Gasperi |
Alessandro |
ITA |
1:48.46,5 |
|
10. |
Merchan |
Jose |
ESP |
1:48.56,2 |
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