The Embrunman is famous, notorious and above all, leaden: with thousands of altitude meters and climbs of several famous cols, the race is considered one of the toughest races in the world. Victories today were for Frenchman Louis Richard and Swiss Emma Bilham.
That not much is decided after the swim was shown when Louis Richard came out of the water in 100th place and, with a swim time of 1:02, was more than 14 minutes behind the fastest men. So, the former cyclist had a lot to make up for on the bike and actually started overtaking dozens of men ahead of him right away. In fact, halfway through the bike leg he was already in eleventh place, although his gap to the leader at the time – William Mennesson – was still over thirteen minutes.
It was only in the second half of the bike leg that his gap rapidly narrowed: still Richard continued to advance to the front and once in T2 he was in fourth. His gap to Mennesson, who was still in the lead, was then five minutes and thus more than halved.
Things moved quickly during the run as well; Richard moved to the front of the race fairly quickly and even took over the lead in the race after just over ten kilometers. He would not relinquish that lead position either, eventually winning the race after 9:30:41. The entire podium was French, as Clement Grandy finished second in 9:35:04 and Simon Viain third in 9:36:54.
In the women’s race, the eventual winner – Emma Bilham – was first out of the water: after 55:14 minutes she was allowed to go to her bike, followed shortly by Camille Shaw and Nina Derron, who finished second in the Paris Olympic Triathlon only two weeks ago. In the end, Bilham and Derron came together on the bike, although Jeanne Collonge also joined the duo before the half-way mark.
It was Bilham who could no longer keep up with Collonge’s pace a few kilometers later, and a little later Derron had to turn down the pace as well. Collonge finally rode solo to T2 and saw her lead on Bilham, who returned to T2 in second place, increase to over seven minutes. A few seconds later, Derron also entered the transition area.
For a long time, Collonge seemed to be heading for victory and even after thirty kilometers, her lead over Bilham, who in turn had grabbed a few minutes ahead of Derron, was more than four minutes. A few kilometers before the end, however, Collonge found herself completely parked and so Bilham eventually won the race in 10:54:44. In 11:01:33, Derron finished second. Nikita Paskiewiez finished third in 11:24:38 and Collonge finished fourth in 11:26:08.
