In a race which was pretty under the radar – actually the whole triathlon world was under the spell of the European Championship Ironman Frankfurt – Leonard Arnold and Petra Kurikova snatched victory at the Czech Ironman 70.3 Hradec Králové.
For Arnold, he was 1:18 minutes behind the fastest swimmer – Nicholas Quenet – after the swim, which put him sixth. On the bike, however, the throttle opened and he rode quickly to the front, accompanied, incidentally, by Joshua Lewis. Still, Lewis was unable to keep up in the closing stages and once in T2, Arnold’s lead had already increased to 3:32 minutes.
During the run, Arnold did not have to worry anymore; initially his lead even increased by a minute, only to shrink a bit in the final kilometers. He won the race in 3:38:09. In the end, Andreas Dreitz finished second in 3:41:45 and Bastian Peitersen third in 3:42:22.
Kurikova took over the lead early on in the women’s race, but despite a lead of more than two minutes on the bike, she still lost her lead position. Britain’s Laura Addie cycled so strongly that she made up her deficit and even managed to turn it into a lead of more than a minute in T2.
During the run, however, it did not take long for Kurikova to put things in order and regain the lead position. After only three kilometers, she was already running in the lead again by just under a minute, and that lead would only grow from then on.
Kurikova won in 4:06:20, Addie was second in 4:10:30 and Jenny Jendryschik was third in 4:13:35.
