It’s only two weeks after his Long Distance debut, but Kristian Blummenfelt just ran to another strong win to add to his impressive 2021 palmares: the win of Clash Daytona. It was Denmark’s Magnus Ditlev who had been leading for most of the day, but about halfway through the run he had to give up his lead to Blummenfelt. Ditlev ended up taking second (+1:37) and America’s Rudy von Berg completed the podium thanks to a great run (+2:58).
While in the women’s race earlier today big gaps were created in the water, in the men’s race the top ten was close together. Even the weaker swimmers weren’t too far back after this first discipline. After 24:36 minutes – only ten seconds faster than the fastest woman – Ben Kanute was the first man to reach his bike. America’s Marc Dubrich followed in his slipstream, Britain’s Thomas Davis was in third (+0:10) and Blummenfelt in fourth (+0:12). Ditlev entered T1 in tenth’ place en had a 36-second deficit at this point.
Ditlev would soon set that straight, though. During the bike part, he hit the gas. After ten km, the Danish uberbiker had moved up five places and was only 27 second behind the first man: Kanute. After 20 km, Ditlev had reached him and taken over. Kanute initially tried to keep up, but soon he was dropped. Kanute and Blummenfelt continued the chase together. America’s Rudy von Berg and Britain’s James Teagle were in fourth and fifth place.
After 50 km of cycling, Ditlev’s advantage on Blummenfelt and Kanute was over 1:30 minute. By the time they reached T2, Ditlev enjoyed a buffer of 2:23 minutes towards his fastest competitors. Kanute racked his bike in fourth place and Hanson, who showed before to be a big mover on the run, started the final discipline in sixth place (+4:55).
With still eighteen km of running to go, Ditlev was awaiting a tough battle with Blummenfelt. It was all a matter of trying to stay clear of Blummenfelt for as long as possible. Ditlev managed to do so for about eleven km, before the Norwegian caught up with him. As soon as Blummenfelt ran next to Ditlev he increased his pace and made sure there was no way anybody would be able to tag along. Nobody was going to be stopping this man on his mission. Blummenfelt ran to another impressive win, Ditlev took second and Von Berg third.
