Only fifteen seconds were between Australian Kieran Storch and defending champion Jack Moody at the finish line of Challenge Taiwan, making the race with more than ten thousand participants a real thriller. Among the women, one athlete was dominant: Alanis Siffert.
Even though Challenge Taiwan often takes place a bit out of European view, it is the largest triathlon in the world. No wonder Moody had his sights set on title prolongation, but today it was Storch who put a stop to that. Initially it was Max Studer who came out of the water first (23:40), together with Caleb Noble and local athlete Tzu I Pan. On the bike, a leading group then formed with those three men, but also joined by Filipe Azevedo and Kurt McDonald. Yet even that did not last long, because by the time Storch more or less joined in after 70 kilometers, Noble and Pan had already dropped off.
During the run it was then Storch who took the initiative and thus gave lustre to his catch-up race: after the swim he was tenth, once in T2 he was in fourth position and during the run he thus took the lead. Moody, however, did not give up, approached to fifteen seconds, but just could not make the jump towards victory. Storch won the race in 3:46:39, while Moody finished second in 3:46:54. Azevedo finished third in 3:49:53. “I hoped if I had my best day, maybe I’d be up there,” said Storch after his win. “But I didn’t think I could win until I came down the finish chute! I got a small gap on Jack out of T2 but it never got more than about 30 seconds for the whole 21km. I just had to keep the pressure on and I’m so happy I managed to hang on!”
Siffert makes difference during swim, decides race during run
In the women’s race, Siffert took the lead immediately during the swim, and when she climbed out of the water after 25:55 minutes, her lead over Lottie Lucas was already 1:20 minutes, with Nina Derron trailing by an additional minute. During the bike ride, however, Derron quickly managed to ride to the front and by the halfway point she had already passed Lucas. However, both ladies rode together to Siffert over the next 45 kilometers and were only 15 seconds behind in T2.
During the run, Siffert again proved inimitable though and managed to build up a margin of several minutes. Siffert won the race in 4:15:27, Lucas followed at over four minutes and Derron eventually dropped more than nine minutes. “It feels just great, it was an amazing race and I had a lot of fun,” said Siffert. “Of course it was really hard but I raced with my heart and gave it all I had. I got a lot of confidence racing off the front from the start to the finish and I’m going to take that with me and build up and hope to have a great next race at The Championship.”
