Cordoba Wins Emotional Norseman as Tungesvik Family Celebrates and Regalado Battles to the Wire

Nikola Cordoba added another major title to a breakout year, taking the women’s win at Norseman just months after winning Himalaya XTRI. (And, to be clear, she didn’t just beat all the women at the Himalayan race – she was the first finisher overall!) Behind her, Helene Melson Tungesvik delivered a home-soil second place a year after giving birth to her daughter Tiril, and Sonia Tomegros Regalado survived a brutal swim to claw her way onto the podium in a three-way sprint that came down to the final kilometres on Gaustatoppen.

For Cordoba, the win carried more weight than the result alone. “I am very happy that I won. For me it was so emotional,” she said. The cold-water start into the fjord didn’t dampen her mood. “The water was very cold, but fun. Jumping off the ferry was interesting.” From there, the day only got better. “The bike was great and the run was also perfect. I had so much fun — so much beautiful nature here in Norway. It’s wonderful.”

Cordoba was quick to credit her team, even though they had some rough patches of their own. “My support crew had a few health issues, but thank you to Patrick — he was amazing.”

Behind her, Helene Melson Tungesvik turned in a performance she called “more than we could hope for” — made all the more remarkable by where she stood twelve months ago. “That was beyond my expectations for one year ago, because then I was up here with a very big belly. I couldn’t imagine that my shape would be like this this year, but here we are.”

That’s only part of the reason the family will be celebrating – Helene’s husband Hans Christian took third today as well.

Her day started rough. “The swim wasn’t that good, I think — it took a very long time, so I wasn’t that satisfied with it,” she said. The bike brought its own challenges. “I started the bike leg and I was really cold, so I was shaking the first 15 kilometers.” A logistics snag compounded things. “Because of some traffic, I didn’t get any support before Haugesund, which is approximately 70 kilometers. That was a bit later than I hoped for, but it turned out to be okay — they were perfect after.”

The run was where it clicked. “That’s what I like the best. I just started running and I felt very good — I had good legs, and I was also able to run all the hills, so I was super-duper happy.”

The battle for third came down to the wire, with Sonia Tomegros Regalado fighting back from a poor swim to secure the final spot on the podium. “I had an extremely bad swim, so when I came out of the water I was extremely behind, and then it was just chasing mode on the bike — passing and passing, fighting the other girls,” she said. The chase carried all the way to the finish. “On the run it was mayhem. We were so close — the last meters in Gaustatoppen, we were like 100, 200 meters away from each other. It was quite intense.”

Regalado embraced the closeness of the field rather than treating it as a burden. “XTERRA puts you in your place, and you have to dig into places you usually don’t dig in, like regular racing,” she said. “It’s quite nice to see all the women fighting so close to each other — it’s like we’re fighters.”

Despite the exhaustion, she had no complaints about the day. “I’m feeling awesome. Very exhausted. It’s been a long day, it’s quite cold, but I loved every second of it, so I’m very, very happy.”

Just 12 minutes separated the top four in the race, with Tonja Lunde Johansen finishing just three minutes behind Tomegros Regalado.

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