The second day of the 2006 ITU Winter Triathlon World Championships continued with the team relay event. Eleven men’s and five women’s teams were on the start line for this exciting event. Based on yesterdays individual results Germany and Norway were the favourites both in the women’s and men’s field.
Anders Aukland took an early lead as he did the previous day and bringing the Norwegian team into first position after the run. He was third behind Heinz Platziner from Austria and the German David Roderer after the MTB segment. Aukland managed to take back the lead by the end of the first relay change, with ski time of the day. Austria came second 34 seconds behind and Germany in third place. In the men’s race, Alf Roger Holme cleared further the Norwegian lead over Germany and Czech Republic came up to the third position, some seconds over Austria. Arne Post from Norway did not have an easy job as a final athlete against yesterday’s World Champions Benjamin Sonntag, but the lead seemed to big for Benjamin to double the number of his gold medal. Sonntag was closer and closer specially till the end of the MTB, but Arne Post brought the Norwegian team with a 14 seconds lead to the finish and won the first elite gold medal for Norway this weekend. Austria came on third position with a great performance of Sigi Bauer as the last athlete.
In the women’s race Britta C. Mustad gave the Norwegian team the lead followed by the German coming into the first changeover in second position. After the first changeover, Gabi Pauli from Germany and Lydia Weydahl from Norway made blistering starts and stayed close to each other during their whole race starting the third athletes – Sigrid Lang in the German team and Camilla Hott Johansen in the Norwegian team - together. In the final leg, Johansen tried to keep the speed with yesterday’s champion Lang, but Lang made the distance bigger and bigger between them. With a stellar performance, Lang brought the German team and flag first to the finish winning the second gold medal this weekend. Norway won silver, the third position on the podium went to the Italy.
Two great days of thrilling competitions, came to a culmination with the age group races. Full results for these races and all the competitions this weekend, plus official photo galleries can be found on the ITU website – www.triathlon.org.
Click here for women team results.
Click here for men team results.
Click here for age-group results.
Click here for event page, story, individual results and picture gallery.