Laura Lindemann of Germany, 20, the 2016 ITU Under 23 Olympic distance World Champion, out sprinted a trio of top rated elite women to win the ETU Sprint Triathlon European Championship in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Anastasia Abrosimova of Russia led a swim breakaway in 10:32, which gave her a 2 seconds lead on Edda Hannesdottir of Iceland, 4 seconds on Maya Kingma of Netherlands and 5 seconds on Anja Knapp of Germany.

Fifteen seconds later, a pack of 10 including Rachel Klamer of Netherlands, Lindemann, Vendula Frintova of the Czech Republic and Claire Michel of Belgium took off on the bike leg in hot pursuit of the lead quartet. Jolanda Annen of Switzerland, who recently won the Cagliari World Cup and took 6th at last week’s Olympic distance European Championship, faced a hard chase as she started the bike with a 32 seconds deficit to make up. Annen fought her way back with a 6th-fastest 33:36 bike split to join a large front pack arriving in T2.

Coming into T2, Klamer led followed closely by Frintova, Annen and Lindemann and then then Michel. Michel worked hard on the run and overtook the quartet on the last lap, followed by Frintova, Lindemann and Annen.

At the ended of the final 2.5-kilometer lap of the run, the quartet broke away and surged to the finish at the end of the blue carpet. Lindemann surged and held first by 3 seconds in a time of 1:03:35 after a 16:46 5k. Annen took 2nd place by a photo finish over Frintova, who matched Annen’s 1:03:38 finish time. Frintova earned the final spot on the podium by a one second margin over Michel, who made up a lot of ground but fell short of the podium with a race-best 16:44 run.

Of note: Vanessa Fernandes of Portugal, the 2008 Olympic Triathlon silver medalist, 2007 ITU World Champion and record-holding 20-time ITU World Cup winner and ITU Hall of Fame member, finished 11th in one of her first races back after a six-year hiatus from competition. Fernandes, at age 31, swam 11:15, rode 33:28 and ran 17:34 to finish in 1:04:32, 57 seconds behind the winner.

ETU Sprint Triathlon European Championship
Dusseldorf, Germany
June 24, 2017
S 750m / B 20k / R 5k

Results

Elite Women

1. Laura Lindemann (GER) 1:03:35
2. Jolanda Annen (SUI) 1:03:38
3. Vendula Frintova (CZE) 1:03:38
4. Claire Michel (BEL) 1:03:39
5. Rachel Klamer (NED) 1:03:52
6. Anastasia Abrosimova (RUS) 1:03:54
7. Elena Danilova (RUS) 1:03:59
8. Anna Godoy Contreras (ESP) 1:04:01
9. Kaidi Kivioja (EST) 1:04:08
10. Anja Knapp (GER) 1:04:24
11. Vanessa Fernandes (POR) 1:04:32