Slovakia’s Nikola Corbova has won Norseman after a thrilling and remarkably rare finish. In a race where the top three – and even a few athletes behind them – remained strikingly close until the final meters, Corbova proved to have the strongest final ‘sprint’ and the greatest endurance
No fewer than eight thousand people register for Norseman, even though there was room for only 250 participants. That says a lot about the race’s popularity – and exclusivity – but doesn’t even begin to describe how brutal it actually is. In this full-distance classic, athletes jump off a ferry into an ice-cold lake to swim 3.8 kilometers back to shore in the dark. What follows is a bike course featuring thousands of meters of elevation gain, with the final section of the marathon leading up the almost impassable Mount Gaustatoppen, reaching a summit nearly two thousand meters above sea level.
Unlike the men’s race, the women’s race remained suspenseful down to the very last, punishingly steep meters. For a moment, it looked like Norway’s Helene Melsom Tungesvik would take the victory, but the race proved just a bit too long for her. In the end, it was the iron-willed Corbova who claimed top honors, winning in a time of 12:04:58. Tungesvik finished second in 12:07:16, while Spain’s Sonia Tomegros Regalado took third place in 12:10:32.
