Belgian Kenneth Vandendriessche and German Anne Haug were crowned this Saturday as the absolute winners of the thirty-second edition of Ironman Lanzarote, the oldest of those held in Europe.
The event once again had excellent weather conditions throughout the day, with the presence of more than a thousand professional and amateur athletes at the start in Puerto del Carmen.
The Lanzarote event, considered one of the toughest triathlons in the world, kicked off at 7:00 a.m. in the municipality of Tías, thus starting an itinerary that included 3.8 kilometers of swimming, 180 kilometers of cycling and 42.2 kilometers of running.
Spaniard Mikel Ugarte took the lead in the initial swimming section together with German Michael Kalb, although in the cycling segment, both Dutchman Milan Brons and Briton Ben Goodfellow soon caught up with the Basque triathlete to lead the race on the first cycling ramps.
However, both Dane Matthew Palmer and Norwegian Jon Breivold were cutting ground from behind, while Ugarte held his own among the first positions at the same time that Jordi Montraveta -fourth in the last edition- demonstrated his class with the pedals, placing fifth at the start of the running race.
In this last running segment, numerous changes continued to occur. Montraveta managed to take the lead in the race, surpassing Ugarte, who began to falter, as a result of the great effort made in the first half of the competition. However, it would be the Belgian Kenneth Vandendriessche who would finally take the prize after a spectacular comeback that led him to take first place just over ten kilometers from the finish line.
Vandendriessche -winner in 2022- crossed the finish line as the winner after using 8 hours, 29 minutes and 54 seconds. Second place went to Montraveta (8:32:26), while third place went to Mikel Ugarte (8:36:39), who knew how to manage the advantage to certify a meritorious Spanish double on the podium.
In the women's category, the German Anne Haug -silver in 2012 and bronze in 2013 in the Triathlon World Championship, as well as Ironman world champion in 2019- dominated the race from start to finish, taking distance from the swimming sector at the expense of the British Lydia Dant, winner of the last two editions, and the French Jeanne Collonge.
Haug, with a time of 9 hours, 6 minutes and 40 seconds, spared no effort to put land in between both in the bike terrain and in the running third, significantly increasing the advantage over Dant, who ended up giving up second place to a Collonge who went from less to more.
Collonge -who was third last year- thus sealed second place in this edition with a time of 9:50:24, while Dant completed the box with a record of 9:54:54. With this, Haug, based in Lanzarote for 20 years, improved Dant's record from last year by more than 52 minutes.