Jan Raphael of Germany charged to an insurmountable lead on the bike leg and Camille Deligny of France edged Mirjam Weerd of Netherlands after a back-and-forth battle to win the elite titles at Challenge Almere-Amsterdam.

Men

Raphael emerged 3rd after a 48:13 swim, and then swept away all resistance with a race-best 4:18:44 bike leg that gave him a 12-minute lead on nearest rival Dirk Wijnalda of Netherlands (4:27:22 bike leg). He was in prime position to break the 7:57 race record set in 1999 by Jan van der Marel, but Raphael preferred to play his cards conservatively. He finished with a 3rd-fastest 2:52:25 marathon that brought him to the finish in 8:03:43, with an 11:05 margin of victory over Wijnalda (2nd-best 2:49:59 marathon) and 20:05 ahead of 3rd-place finisher Marek Jaskolka of Poland (race-best 2:49:57 run), who overtook Erik-Simon Strijk of Netherlands in the final kilometers of the run.

Women

Unlike the runaway victory in the men’s contest, Camille Deligny of France and Mirjam Weerd of Netherlands engaged in a race-long duel that wasn’t settled until the final kilometers of the run.

Weerd led the women’s swim in 52:17, which gave her a 7:38 lead on Deligny, 7:56 on Erika Csomor of Hungary, and 14:24 on Poland’s Simona Krivankova.

Deligny took charge with a women’s-best 4:43:11 bike split, which was 8:39 better than Weerd and gave the Frenchwoman a 1 minute lead over the home country favorite starting the run. Krivankova and Csomor were out of the picture, 20 minutes down, after 5:01:32 and 5:04:11 bike splits on the super-flat and super-fast roads of Almere.

Halfway through the run, Weerd caught Deligny and the duo exchanged the lead for the next 7 kilometers. Whereupon Weerd seemed to run out of gas, dropping minutes behind the leader before regaining momentum. After a women’s 3rd-best 3:30:04 marathon, Deligny finished first in 9:18:13, 2:44 ahead of Weerd, who closed with a 3:31:23 run. Simona Krivankova ran a women’s-best 3:11:19 to take the final spot on the podium, 6:33 behind Deligny and 3:10 ahead of Csomor, who ran 3:18:09 to finish 4th.

Challenge Almere-Amsterdam
Almere, Netherlands
September 10, 2016
S 2.4 mi. / B 112 mi. / R 26.2 mi.

Results

Men

1. Jan Raphael (GER) 8:03:43 €6,000
2. Dirk Wijnalda (NED) 8:14:48 €3,900
3. Marek Jaskolka (POL) 8:23:48 €2,750
4. Erik-Simon Strijk (NED) 8:24:46 €1,900
5. Diederik Scheltinga (NED) 8:26:13 €1,500

Women

1. Camille Deligny (FRA) 9:18:15 €6,000
2. Mirjam Weerd (NED) 9:20:59 €3,900
3. Simona Krivankova (CZE) 9:24:48 €2,750
4. Erika Csomor (HUN) 9:27:58 €1,900
5. Julia Mai (GER) 9:45:06 €1,500