The opening of the German Mixed Relay Team was not so strong in Abu Dhabi, but the reigning Olympic Champion came back strong in the second half of the race and eventually won the first race of season 2025. The race covered – per athlete – 300 meters of swimming, 7 kilometers of biking and 2 kilometers of running.
In the first heat it was pretty remarkable what a big deficit Germany was facing, and it was the same in the second heat. Initially the race was made especially hard by Belgium and USA, although the differences in the first heat were relatively small.
In the second heat that soon changed and a leading group emerged with the Netherlands, Portugal, Great Britain, Switzerland and Spain, but halfway through the bike, disaster struck in the leading group when Switzerland crashed and the three athletes behind crashed as well. Only Spain was able to avoid a crash and rode on, while Holland’s Mitch Kolkman got up at lightning speed and immediately went in pursuit again. Portugal, Great Britain and Switzerland suffered much more damage and were seen at this point.
From then on no large groups formed anymore and Germany, meanwhile, was catching up. That finally happened in the third heat, when it all came back together a bit at the front, but Tanja Neubert proved to be the strongest runner and took over the lead in the race for the first time. From then on, no one would see Germany again.
That in itself was remarkable, because in the fourth heat Henry Graf was leading, but was chased on the bike by The Netherlands, America, Italy and Spain. However, they did not close the gap to the front, but rather lost time: their gap grew from about fifteen to almost 35 seconds on the bike. When the run began, it was already clear that Germany would won the race.
Germany won the race in 1:32:05. America was second in 1:32:21 and Italy third in 1:32:24.
