Frenchwoman Ilona Hadhourn and Portuguese Joao Nuno Batista won the Junior World Championships Sprint today. In exciting races, they crowned themselves world champions in Hamburg.
The Juniors kicked off the World Champs weekend – where the elite athletes will be racing tomorrow and Saturday – with spectacular races. The women’s race was quite hectic, with quite a few crashes during the bike, but still a large group came into T2 together at the same time. From there Hadhourn immediately took the lead and during the 5 kilometer run she did not relinquish it either. In the final kilometers, Jimena Renata de la Pena Schott (MEX) and Manon Laporte (FRA) put the pressure on, but they did not come close enough to keep Hadhourn from victory. Hadhourn claimed the world title in a time of 56:47, while De La Pena Schott finished second in 56:54 and Laporte third in 57:02.
In the men’s race, it was Portugal’s Batista who won the race and became Junior World Champion. He pulled off the victory in a time of 51:11. Just three seconds later, Nils Serre Gehri (FRA) was second and five seconds after the winner, Mathis Beaulieu (CAN) was third.
