The first multisport world titles of 2023 are up for grabs on Saturday on day one of the World Triathlon Multisport Championships Ibiza.
The duathlon events have the honour of getting proceedings underway, Saturday’s elite and age-group sprints followed by the 2x2 Mixed Relay and standard distance age-group racing on Sunday.
It’s a 5km run, 20km bike and 2.5km run that awaits the elites, uphill out of town then snaking around Santa Eulalia harbour on foot before a 3-lap bike, up-and-back bike with a rolling incline, a pan-flat final run to the tape.
Watch all the action on TriathlonLive.tv starting with the women at 11.30am CEST.
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Abreu chasing hat-trick of titles
In the women’s race, the defending champion Joselyn Breu Abreu is chasing a third straight title. The Venezuelan loves to attack from the outset, but this will be her first major race for 10 months and it will be a huge test on the White Isle.
Conversely, World Games champion Maurine Ricour (BEL) arrives off the back of a European Championship silver last month. The woman she out-ran last year to the title in Birmingham, Alabama, is the great Ai Ueda of Japan, a four-time World Championship medallist for whom gold has proven to be agonisingly out of reach. Could Ibiza be the place to scoop the prize?
Italy’s Giorgia Priarone and Spain’s María Varo Zubiri were side-by-side onto the final 5km in Targu Mures 12 months ago before their medal challenges faded. Varo will hope the home crowd can spur her on to great things in Ibiza.
Reigning Aquathlon World Champion and last year’s duathlon silver medallist Celine Kaiser (GER) seeks to go one better than she did in Targu Mures after two good showings in the Arena Games in recent weeks.
Sandrina Illes (AUT), Marion Le Goff and Marion Legrand of France and Hungary’s Zsanett Bragmayer are all capable of delivering medal-winning performances, Bragmayer also likely to be packing a post-Arena Games hunger for the podium more than ever.
Strong French men’s squad ready for medals
In the men’s race, it will be hard to look beyond a French delegation that has dominated the medals over the years.
Boasting a one-two-three sweep in 2022, gold and silver in 2021 and gold in 2019, the talent runs deep, with three different names coming out on top of those three podiums; Krilan le Bihan, Nathan Guerbeur and Benjamin Choquert.
All of them will start in Ibiza, as well as the versatile Maxime Hueber-Moosbrugger, that medal potential providing plenty of incentive to an equally potent Belgian squad that boasts Arnaud Dely – European U23 silver medallist here four years ago and a mixed relay world champion and last year’s U23 Duathlon and Cross Duathlon World Champion Thibaut de Smet.
Mario Mola steps into the action
If there is one man that can upset the form guide, however, it is Spain’s Mario Mola. A three-time World Triathlon Champion who dominated the highest level of the sport from 2016 to 2018, you may have to go back 14 years for his last Duathlon World Championship appearance (he won silver as a junior in 2009), but he proved last year that he still has the speed over 5km required to take what would be a hugely popular title here.
Beyond those key names, Netherlands’ Dan de Groot and Brazil’s national champion Francisco Viana are among the athletes from 16 nations hoping to deliver the race of their lives on Saturday morning.
Full start list available here.
