Asia Cup Dexing
The only triathlon action to take place at the weekend came in China with the Dexing Asia Cup. Anqi Huang (CHN) claimed the win in the women’s race after overcoming unlikely odds with a stirring effort.
To kick off the race, Yuan Yuan (CHN) put over 20 seconds into the field by the end of the 1500m swim. One by one, fragments of the detonated field managed to claw their way onto Yuan’s wheel and eventually a lead group of eight women rode together. Huang, though, was not among them.
By the time she arrived in T2, Huang was close to 2 minutes in arrears of the leaders. Although she had previously claimed multiple Asia Cup victories, the gold medal in Dexing appeared to be out of reach. However, a lightning 35:14 run split – on a day when no one else dipped under 37 minutes – overturned the deficit, and the odds, to secure the win. The rest of the podium came from the front group as Sarika Nakayama (JPN) finished in 2nd place and Xinyi Xu (CHN) took 3rd.
Meanwhile, victory in the men’s race went to Austria’s Lukas Pertl. As with the women’s event the field had been strung out in the water, Yanjie Li (CHN) leading the way in 18:02. Pertl had work to do having swam over a minute slower (19:03) but was part of a pack of over 20 men that eventually grouped together at the head of the race.
Rongheng Chen (CHN) was not content to simply roll around the 40km bike and tried his luck off the front. His 1:06:32 bike split – the best of the day – put him half a minute clear of the leaders into T2.
However he could not hold on over the 10km run as Pertl, Sergiy Polikarpenko (ITA) and Qing Chen (CHN) passed him, with the trio finishing on the podium in that order. You can view the full results here.
Around the world
There were two notable cases of triathletes let loose in the running world. Paris Olympian and World Cup gold medallist Sophie Linn (AUS) earned the bronze medal over 50km at the Desert RATS Trail Running Festival in Fruita, CO. World Mixed Team Relay Championships medallist Simon Westermann (SUI) was also active as he made his half-marathon debut in Zurich, clocking 1:06:55.