Thanks to a bike course that was 10 km short, the amazing performances put together by Patrick Lange and Anne Haug at Challenge Roth this year have almost been overlooked. They shouldn’t be – Lange won the race in a blazing 7:19:28 after running a 2:38:30 marathon, finishing over 11 minutes ahead of Nils Frommhold, while Haug went 7:53:48, running an incredible 2:43:54 marathon to win by almost 32 minutes.
We’ll never know how close Lange and Haug could have been to the course records in Roth (7:35:39 by Jan Frodeno and 8:18:13 by Chrissie Wellington), but it’s not hard to imagine they would have been close. Take their average speed for the bike and add on the extra time and both Lange and Haug appear to have been on record pace for the day.
You can read our recap of the day’s racing, along with video interviews with the champions here.
Because of the shortened bike course Haug and Lange’s efforts can’t be considered new records, but they were, without a doubt, two of the most dominant and impressive long-distance performances of 2021.
