Europe Triathlon

Evgenia Sukhoruchenkova and Ivan Vasiliev claimed victory in the final European race of 2012 as Russian athletes dominated the season’s climax in Alanya.

In a frantic finale in the Elite Women’s race, only five seconds separated the top three athletes.

Sukhoruchenkova led compatriot Elena Danilova onto the podium (pictured above), but Radka Vodickova (CZE) was sandwiched between them for second place.

For Sukhoruchenkova this marks a remarkable end to the year, with back to back wins following her victory in Mondello last month.

Danilova’s end to 2012 is equally impressive, with three podium places in her final three individual races at this level.

In the Elite Men’s race, Ivan Vasiliev enjoyed a much more comfortable victory, his first career European win at this level (pictured above).

He finished ahead of Vladimir Turbayevskiy and Andrey Bryukhankov on the podium but remarkably Russian men finished in the top five places, with Ivan Tutikin and Anatoly Fedetov just missing out on the medals.

Ireland’s Conor Murphy broke the mold as he finished in 6th place.

The race results did little to affect the end of the year rankings for both the Men and Women, and confirmation of the final European Rankings for 2012 will be issued in due course.