Every year it’s exciting which race will be named best race during the Sailfish Night of the Year, but this year there appeared to be one clear winner. By far the most votes went to Challenge Roth.
A whopping 70.9% of the votes were received by Challenge Roth, which thus beat Ironman Frankfurt (9.1%) and the Tri Battle Royale (7.0%). The Allgäu Triathlon (18.6%) was declared Middle Distance of the year. Behind Allgäu Triathlon came the World Championship Ironman 70.3 (11.6%) and Challenge St. Pölten (10.4%). In terms of short distance, not entirely surprisingly, the Olympic race in Tokyo won.
Also the vote for best international female athlete turned out not to be a very exciting one. 53.9% of the votes went to Lucy Charles. Flora Duffy, who won Olympic gold this year, came in second with 13.4% of the votes and Nicola Spirig came in third with 12.6% of the votes. During the Sailfish Night of the Year, the best German athletes are also always voted for. This year, that honor went to Anne Haug (42.9%) in the women’s category, while Laura Philipp (34.8%) and Laura Lindemann (7.6%) came in second and third.
In the men’s category, the best international athlete was Kristian Blummenfelt. The Norwegian grabbed 34.4% of the votes. Lionel Sanders and Gustav Iden were just behind with 25.3% and 22.6% respectively. Jan Frodeno (36.2%) stayed one step ahead of Frederic Funk in the best German athlete category. Funk came in second with 35.8%. Patrick Lange came in third with 12.3% of the votes.
