A carnival of colour began the 2023
World Triathlon Multisport Championships Ibiza as the flags of 61 nations were
paraded along the Santa Eulalia waterfront on Friday afternoon before gathering
in the town square for the formal opening and oaths.
Alongside World Triathlon President
Marisol Casado were FETRI President Jose Hidalgo, the Mayor of Santa Eulalia,
Carmen Ferrer Torres and Vicent Marí, Presidente of the Consell d’Eivissa.
“This is the sixth edition of these
championships, and the first time since before the pandemic that we have been
able to hold them all in one location,” said Marisol Casado. “For that I extend
our enormous gratitude to the Local Organising Committee and FETRI for bringing
us all here. We have been fortunate to hold these world championships in some
outstanding venues since 2017, and this year we continue that tradition in
grand style.”
The duathlon competitions are the
first on the schedule, with Saturday’s Sprint Duathlon World Championships
getting under way with the Age Group racing from 8am followed by the elites as
local favourite and three-time World Triathlon Champion Mario Mola looks to
break the French grip on the title the have held over the past three years.
It’s a 5km run, 20km bike and 2.5km
run that awaits the elites, uphill out of town then snaking around Santa
Eulalia harbour on foot before a 3-lap bike, up-and-back bike with a rolling
incline, a pan-flat final run to the tape. For full coverage, tune in to
TriathlonLive.tv. from 11.30am.
Joselyn Abreu chasing hat-trick of
titles
In the women’s race, the defending
champion Joselyn Breu Abreu is chasing a third straight title. The Venezuelan
loves to attack from the outset, but this will be her first major race for 10
months and it will be a huge test on the White Isle.
Conversely, World Games champion
Maurine Ricour (BEL) arrives off the back of a European Championship silver
last month. The woman she out-ran last year to the title in Birmingham,
Alabama, is the great Ai Ueda of Japan, a four-time World Championship medallist
for whom gold has proven to be agonisingly out of reach. Could Ibiza be the
place to scoop the prize?
Italy’s Giorgia Priarone and Spain’s
María Varo Zubiri were side-by-side onto the final 5km in Targu Mures 12 months
ago before their medal challenges faded. Varo will hope the home crowd can spur
her on to great things in Ibiza.
Reigning Aquathlon World Champion and
last year’s duathlon silver medallist Celine Kaiser (GER) seeks to go one
better than she did in Targu Mures after two good showings in the Arena Games
in recent weeks.
Sandrina Illes (AUT), Marion Le Goff
and Marion Legrand of France and Hungary’s Zsanett Bragmayer are all capable of
delivering medal-winning performances, Bragmayer also likely to be packing a
post-Arena Games hunger for the podium more than ever.
Strong French men’s squad ready for
medals
In the men’s race, it will be hard to
look beyond a French delegation that has dominated the medals over the years.
Boasting a one-two-three sweep in
2022, gold and silver in 2021 and gold in 2019, the talent runs deep, with
three different names coming out on top of those three podiums; Krilan le
Bihan, Nathan Guerbeur and Benjamin Choquert.
All of them will start in Ibiza, as
well as the versatile Maxime Hueber-Moosbrugger, that medal potential providing
plenty of incentive to an equally potent Belgian squad that boasts Arnaud Dely
– European U23 silver medallist here four years ago and a mixed relay world
champion and last year’s U23 Duathlon and Cross Duathlon World Champion Thibaut
de Smet.
Mario Mola steps into the action
If there is one man that can upset
the form guide, however, it is Spain’s Mario Mola. A three-time World Triathlon
Champion who dominated the highest level of the sport from 2016 to 2018, you
may have to go back 14 years for his last Duathlon World Championship
appearance (he won silver as a junior in 2009), but he proved last year that he
still has the speed over 5km required to take what would be a hugely popular
title here.
Beyond those key names, Netherlands’
Dan de Groot and Brazil’s national champion Francisco Viana are among the
athletes from 16 nations hoping to deliver the race of their lives on Saturday
morning.
Full start list available here. https://www.triathlon.org/events/start_lists/2023_world_triathlon_multisport_championships_ibiza?mc_cid=db44fb694f&mc_eid=6139649918
ABOUT WORLD TRIATHLON
World Triathlon is the international
governing body for the Olympic and Paralympic sport of triathlon and all
related multisport disciplines around the world, including duathlon, aquathlon,
cross triathlon and winter triathlon. Triathlon made its Olympic debut in
Sydney 2000, with a third medal event, the Mixed Team Relay, added to the
programme at Tokyo 2020, while para triathlon was first added to the Paralympic
programme at Rio 2016. World Triathlon is proudly committed to the development
of the sport worldwide, with inclusion, equality, sustainability and
transparency at our core as we seek to help triathletes at all levels of the
sport to be extraordinary.
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