Europe Triathlon

István Király and Eszter Pap were the winners in the Junior European Cup race in Bled.

The Hungarian duo were amongst the front runners throughout the whole race and thoroughly deserved their victories. The Hungarian Triathlon Federation can be hugely satisfied with their weekend’s work as they picked up another bronze medal, giving them three podium places out of six.

Junior Men’s Review

Conditions were perfect on raceday in the beautiful scenery of Bled. The water temperature of 22˚ meant no wetsuits were required. 44 Junior men jumped into the water and we were underway.

A frantic 400m swim followed and the fastest swimmers exited the water just after five minutes. The 13km bike course was techincal and hilly but the leading pack who managed to breakaway were made up of six riders; Kiraly and

Halasz (HUN), Vanderplancke and Swertvaegher (BEL), Kavalirek (AUT) and Cervenka (CZE).

Despite a 15 second penalty for throwing his helmet in T2, Kiraly recovered and dominated the 3.3km run with the fastest run time of the day. He crossed the line almost thirty seconds ahead of Vanderplancke who claimed silver.

Kiraly’s Hungarian compatriot was comfortable in third place to make it a double podium for the Hungarian Junior men.

Junior Women’s Review

Eszter Pap suffered no ill effects from her 4th place ITU World Championships Series in Beijing last weekend as she cruised to victory here in Bled.

Pap dominated from start to finish in this race thanks to a dynamic swim and bike and the fastest run of the day.

Croatia’s Tea Milos finished second to score her highest placing of the season and their was delight for the home crowd as Marusa Klemenc of Slovenia came home in thrid place.

Photo: The winning athletes stand together on the podium.