There had been a lot of talk beforehand about ‘the Norwegian battle’ and it finally happened during Challenge Samarkand: in Uzbekistan Kristian Blummenfelt and Gustav Iden finally battled each other again. The clear winner was Blummenfelt, who was especially unleashed during the run, while Iden’s second place proved to be a nice mental boost in a difficult season.
At Challenge Samarkand there was a small but very strong pro field at the start. This was evident when immediately after the swim a leading group of five emerged: in addition to Blummenfelt and Iden, the IM 70.3 world champion Rico Bogen and former pro cyclist Ruben Zepuntke were among them, as well as Kazakh Bogdan Kovalenko.
On the beautiful bike course in Samarkand, where athletes ride on perfect roads right through the historic city and past all the sightseeings, the five men actually stayed together constantly. The pace was bizarrely high, almost never dropping below 60 kilometers per hour on the straights. In the first of two bike laps it was mainly Bogen who took the initiative and tried to hurt the rest, but halfway through Kovalenko surprisingly came riding to the front to take the lead. Meanwhile, Blummenfelt and Iden were struggling at times, as they indicated afterwards.
With 15 kilometers to go, it was again Bogen who rode to the front, but this time with more conviction. His attack was so strong that no one could follow and the German even grabbed a lead of about a minute in the remaining kilometers. “I knew I had to do something, because those Norwegians run incredibly fast,” he spoke later at the finish line.
And it showed, because during the run, Blummenfelt needed just under seven kilometers to close the minute gap and from then on he took over the lead in the race. Meanwhile, Iden also got closer to Bogen and together they started the last five kilometers. In the end, Iden was too strong for Bogen and thus the Norwegian double was a fact.
Blummenfelt won the race in 3:31:42, Iden was second in 3:34:26 and Bogen third in 3:35:35.
Text continues below pictureThe women’s race was dominated by one athlete: Laura Madsen. The Danish took the initiative already during the swim and saw her lead only increase throughout the day. She won the race in 3:58:34 and stayed well ahead of Marta Lagownik (4:08:37) and Justine Guerard (4:18:34), among others.
