He keeps it short: “I have absolutely no words for this one.” And we can imagine he’s speechless, because what an incredible day it was yesterday for Denmark’s Magnus Ditlev. The uberbiker showed that he knows how to run a great marathon too, as Ditlev ran to a big win – nine minutes ahead of second-place finisher Patrick Lange – at Challenge Roth. And that for a man who’s only 24 years old…
Ditlev first surprised triathlon fans when he – as a complete dark horse – raced to the front during the bike part of Challenge Daytona 2020. He then struggled during the run, which saw him drop back to a 14th place, but his name was now out there, and he was one to watch for the bike part. Winning Challenge Budva and Ironman 70.3 Portugal in 2021, Ditlev started to show that he can be an all round strong triathlete too, but it wasn’t until Ironman Texas that people really started to notice him. Ditlev then came back from a flat tire and battled with America’s Ben Hoffman who ended up claiming the victory a few meters ahead of him.
Yesterday, it was finally Ditlev’s big day. In an impressive time of 7:35:48 hours, he claimed the gold in a stellar field. With that finish time, he was only nine seconds shy of Jan Frodeno’s Challenge Roth course record from 2016. Ditlev swam 50:44 – which saw him exit the water two minutes behind the first man – noted a new course record on the bike (4:01:56 hours) and ran the second-best marathon of the day (2:40:22). It was Patrick Lange who ran the fastest marathon: 2:35:10 hours.
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