In a race that was tough on all fronts – it was cold, there was wind, it rained at times and the pace was high – Kristian Hogenhaug just showed the best version ever of himself. He experienced – to use his own words – his best race ever and dominated from almost start to finish. Hanne de Vet did win the women’s race in a stunning manner as well, by sticking to her own plan and striking in the closing stages of the run.
In the men’s race, most eyes initially were undoubtedly on Frederic Funk, who has competed in The Championship six times before, stood on the podium several times, but never won. He wanted to change that today, but Kristian Hogenhaug threw a spanner in the works. While a huge group formed after the swim, including such world-class athletes as Hogenhaug, Funk, Tom Bishop and Jesper Svensson all together, it was Hogenhaug who made the first serious move. He quickly caught back the leader at that point, German Hannes Butters, and would not look back either.
Initially Hogenhaug still got Butters, Funk and also the surprising Bogdan Kovalenko with him, but after about 40 kilometers on the bike these men had to let go of the leader. Hogenhaug, meanwhile, steamed along unperturbed, completely focused on himself and built a 2:30 minute lead on the bike.
During the run, Hogenhaug appeared not to have wasted his energy on the bike, as he proved strong once again. Behind him, men like Funk and Kovalenko did drop off hard, but a wonderful battle ensued between Henry Räppo, Kieran Lindars and Will Draper: the three stayed together from start to finish and eventually had to sprint for second and third place.
Hogenhaug won the race in 3:23:53. Räppo was fastest in the sprint and took second in 3:25:52 and Lindars took the bronze in 3:25:53.
Text continues below pictureTough conditions suits De Vet very well
Whereas The Championship – Challenge Family’s most important race and even unofficial World Championship – has been held in sunny and warm conditions in recent years, today was completely different. With a water temperature of only 12 degrees and outside temperatures around 10 degrees, the 1.9-kilometer swim leg was forced to be shortened to 750 meters, but for De Vet, the heroic conditions were not necessarily unpleasant. In the water she felt nothing but cold and so she was happy when she could leave the water: she did so in fifth position and actually right into the feet of Sara Perez Sala, Daisy Davies, Iida Reini and Maaike Vooren.
In T1 Perez Sala crashed and as a result the Spanish athlete lost all connection, but on the bike a leading group of four women then quickly formed: in addition to De Vet, Davies, Chloe Sparrow and Anastacia Nielsen were also riding in front. This happened in initially fine conditions, although in the final kilometers the wind began to pick up and the rain also increased at times. Afterwards De Vet would speak of ‘typical Belgian conditions’ with which she was actually not unhappy at all.
In the second part of the bike, eventually only Davies and De Vet remained in the lead of the race and when they turned into T2, their lead over Sparrow and Nielsen was already over two minutes. It was also the moment Davies took the initiative in the race by immediately running away first and eventually grabbed a lead of about twenty seconds. She managed to maintain that lead for about ten kilometers, because then De Vet thought it was enough, took over the lead in the race and never relinquished it.
De Vet won the race in 3:48:56, Davies finished second in 3:50:09 and Nielsen finished third in 3:53:46.
