Home favorite Kacper Stepniak secured victory on home soil at Ironman 70.3 Krakow: the Pole prevailed after a true thriller that was decided by just a few seconds over Denmark’s Daniel Baekkegard. In the women’s race, the win went to Britain’s Nikki Bartlett.
While the race calendar is a bit lighter due to the summer period, high-level racing is still taking place here and there. Today that was the case in Poland, where Germany’s Hannes Butters was the first out of the water at Ironman 70.3 Krakow, stopping the clock at 21:12 minutes. However, Butters couldn’t break away, as he was immediately followed by Marc Dubrick and Cenzino Lebot. Just a few seconds later, Kacper Stepniak, Daniel Baekkegard, Johannes Vogel, Christophe de Keyser, Samuel Studer, Antonio Limoli, and Rafael Lukatsch also headed into T1.
On the bike, Stepniak proved to be a man on a mission right away. Taking the lead immediately, he kept the pace high and thinned the lead group down to five men: Stepniak was joined by Baekkegard, Vogel, Butters, and Dubrick. When Baekkegard pushed the pace even harder in the final thirty kilometers, Vogel and Dubrick paid the price, leaving three men to enter the final 21.1-kilometer run together.
Just as in the opening stages of the bike segment, Stepniak left no doubt about his intentions: he was determined to win at home. Dubrick dropped off within the first few kilometers, but Baekkegard dug deep and hung onto his Polish rival, with the two trading strides until the final meters. Shortly before the finish line, Stepniak made the decisive move, ultimately taking the victory in a time of 3:36:37. Baekkegard finished second in 3:36:57, and Dubrick secured third in 3:38:22.
Nikki Bartlett Takes Control on the Bike
In the women’s race, the decisive move came much earlier. Initially, Italy’s Lilli Gelmini led out of the water with a swim time of 24:45, closely followed by Rosie Weston, Megan McDonald, Bridget Theunissen, Brooke Gillies, Francesca Crestani, and Sofia Aguayo Mauri. Nikki Bartlett exited the water in eighth position, trailing by 1:41 minutes.
That dynamic shifted rapidly on the bike as Bartlett began carving through the field, quickly regaining both positions and time. Before the 45-kilometer mark, the eventual winner had moved up to fourth place, sitting just sixteen seconds behind McDonald, who was leading the race at the time. A few kilometers later, Bartlett surged ahead and never looked back. By T2, her lead had grown to a minute and a half over Gillies and McDonald, with Crestani trailing by 1:52 minutes.
On the run, plenty of position changes unfolded behind Bartlett, but none threatened the lead. Bartlett consolidated her position brilliantly to lock in a well-deserved victory in 4:08:26. Crestani ran her way to second place in 4:09:59, while France’s Aurelia Boulanger stormed up the field to take third in 4:10:45.
