After 6 kilometers of off road running, 21 kilometers of mountain biking and another 3 kilometers of off road running on Ibiza, Belgian Sebastien Carabin and Dutch Diede Diederiks may call themselves World Champions Cross Duathlon. Diederiks in particular won the race with a huge margin.
Already during the first run, Diederiks ran faster than everyone and proved inimitable: she grabbed a minute’s lead. On the bike, her lead only increased and eventually reached about seven minutes. During the final run, of course, her victory was no longer in danger; Diederiks won the race in a time of 1:45:42. Silver went to Switzerland’s Anna Zehnder, who needed 1:52:52 for her race, more than seven minutes behind Diederiks. The bronze medal went to Spain’s Eva Garcia Gonzalez; she crossed the finish line after 1:55:54.
In the men’s race, a larger group stayed together during the first run, but Carabin really made the difference during the bike. There he grabbed some forty seconds ahead of Jens Emil Sloth Nielsen, and even though the Dane ran a little faster in the closing run, it was no longer enough to overtake Carabin. Carabin therefore won the race in 1:30:20, 24 seconds before Sloth Nielsen won the silver. Italian Alessandro Saravalle finished third in 1:32:37.
