Fifteen national teams lined up at the start of the World Triathlon Mixed Relay Olympic Qualifying event in Lisbon, Portugal this morning, seeking one of three slots available for the super sprint team finals at Tokyo. Eight countries already qualified due to World Championship mixed relay victories - France, Australia, Great Britain, New Zealand, Germany, Netherlands, USA and host country Japan - were not competing at Lisbon.

By the end of a fiercely contested day, Team Belgium’s Valerie Barthelemy, Jelle Geens, Claire Michel and Marten Van Riel finished in 1:23:57 with a 50-seconds margin over runner-up Team Italy, who prevailed in a photo finish line sprint in an equal 50-seconds time over third place Team Switzerland.

Midway through the contest, Norway and Denmark were still in contention, but once Van Riel, Max Studer and Nicola Azzano came out of the swim with a big margin on the rest of the contenders on the final leg, the podium was settled. “My team put me in the perfect position for the last leg, I just had to finish it,” said Van Riel. “I went all out and it is just phenomenal to finish first.”

In the action-packed super sprint format, two men and two women from each team each completed a 300-meter swim, a 7-kilometer bike leg and a 1.63 kilometer run leg.

While the day’s winners climbed atop the podium to receive their medals, one detail remained. There will be no relay specialists allowed – every member of the 4-person teams must be in the top 140 of the individual Olympic ranking to take part. With 11 Automatic Team slots now filled, five slots remain to round out the 16-Team field.

Race Recap

Ireland’s Chloe Pollard led the first leg swim followed closely by Melanie Santos of Portugal, Italy’s Angelica Olmo and Lotte Miller for Norway. After a long run to transiti0on, Belgium, Brazil and Spain were 15 seconds back. By the time the first pack crested the lone hill, Lotte Miller of Norway charged ahead on the fast downhill. Starting the run, Alberte Kjaer Pedersen led out of transition with Belgium’s Michel and Switzerland’s Alissa König chasing. By the final handoff, Italy’s Angelica Olmo closed on Pedersen.

Starting Leg 2, Kristian Blummenfelt of Norway, Fernando Alarza of Spain and Jelle Geens of Belgium went full throttle on the swim, closing a 30-seconds gap to leaders Denmark, Switzerland and Italy. While Brazil had wetsuit issues that ended their day, with a furious bike split, Blummenfelt and Geens led the field into T2, passing the batons to Solveig Lovseth of Norway and Valerie Barthelemy of Belgium. Starting the bike, Alice Betto of Italy had 7 seconds on Barthelemy and Denmark’s Sif Bendix Madsen and Norway fell back. Soon, Switzerland’s 2012 Olympic champion Nicola Spirig charged from a 13 seconds deficit to take the lead with a 22:15 split that was 16 seconds better than Belgium and Italy.

Spirig led the women into the Leg 3 run and gave teammate Max Studer a 9 seconds lead over Marten Van Riel of Belgium at the transition. When Miriam Casillas crashed arriving at the transition, that ended Spain’s day.

At the end of the Leg 4 swim, Denmark and Italy trailed by 17 seconds, but Gustav Iden of Norway had a bad swim and trailed by 75 seconds. By the end of the swim, Studer slipped in transition leaving him with a slim lead on Van Riel, trailed by Denmark’s Henrik Klemmensen and Italy’s Nicola Azzano. Showing his power, Van Riel rode away to a 27 seconds lead into Studer and Azzano with one lap to go.

With a super-fast transition, Azzano gained a few seconds advantage on Studer while Van Riel jetted away to a 50 seconds lead to the finish. The Italian and the Swiss battled all the way to the end, with Azzano taking the silver by a few inches.

“We are incredibly happy and proud and we knew we needed that podium and really performed as a team,” Italy’s Azzano told ITU media. “We pushed very hard together, I’m so, so happy,” added teammate Betto

“We are very happy with third and Olympic qualification for the team,” said Switzerland’s Spirig. “My goal was to give Max the best position I could and I pushed hard to get back to Betto and then on the run the same. It is very exciting to start in a team in my fifth Olympics, and the young athletes are very excited.”

World Triathlon Mixed Relay Olympic Qualification
Lisbon, Portugal
May 21, 2021
4 legs x S 300m (1 lap) / B 7 km (2 laps) / R 1.63 (2 laps) km

Results

1. Team Belgium (Valerie Barthelemy, Jelle Geens, Claire Michel, Marten Van Riel)
Leg 1 22:07 Leg 2 19:30 Leg 3 22:31 Leg 4 20:07 TOTAL 1:23:57
2. Team Italy (Angelica Olmo, Gianluca Pozzatti, Alice Betto, Nicola Azzano)
Leg 1 21:54 Leg 2 19:34 Leg 3 22:31 Leg 4 22:31 TOTAL 1:24:48
3. Team Switzerland (Alissa König. Andrea Salvisberg, Nicola Spirig, Max Studer)
Leg 1 22:02 Leg 2 19:25 Leg 3 22:15 Leg 4 22:15 TOTAL l 1:24:48
4. Team Norway 1:25:50
5. Team Denmark 1:26:12
6. Team Spain 1:27:49
7. Team Portugal 1:28:05
8. Team Austria 1:28:28
9. Team Czech Republic 1:28:39
LAP Team Canada
LAP Team Mexico
LAP Ream Russia
LAP Team Ireland
DNF Team Hungary
DNF Team Brazil