Soraya García and Sebastià Catllà take the Trangoworld Spanish Cup of Winter Triathlon of Béjar

With favorable weather forecasts and a perfect blanket of white snow waiting at the top, around fifty athletes gathered in the streets of Béjar

It is not always easy to combine perfectly all the elements that make up a white triathlon, but fortunately on Saturday the II Winter Triathlon City of Béjar-La Covatilla showed that this area of ​​Salamanca has all the ingredients for a great event of these characteristics.

With the favorable weather forecasts and a perfect blanket of white snow waiting at the top, around fifty athletes gathered in the streets of Béjar to take part in one of the stops of the Spanish Cup Trangoworld of the modality and in addition, Championship of Castilla y León. Many of them, with recent experience in the European Championship of the specialty played a few weeks ago in Reinosa.

The first difficulty that included the test was a sector of 6 kilometers of foot race through the urban area of ​​Béjar. Israel Tapias arrived in first position at the first transition but in a group formed by Jesús Alberto García and Sebastiá Catllá, who was already third in Ansó. Behind, without losing too many meters came other triathletes such as Carlos Nieto or Juan Antonio García.

It was the turn of the ascent to the ski slopes of Sierra de Béjar La Covatilla by the powerful ramps of one of the mythical climbs of Spanish cycling. The 23 kilometers were going to squeeze the runners.

In the ascension Tapias lost contact with the companions of escape, García and Catllá, yielding around a minute apart. The advantage still did not allow the head of the race to discard the triathlete of the IMD Segovia, but the big differences with the rest guaranteed the podium and that the fight, at most, was a matter of three. When arriving at the ski resort, Jesús Alberto García and Sebastiá Catllá took the skis trying not to lose a second since everything was about to be decided on the snow.

Although the snow conditions were perfect in the Bejarana facilities, there was no time to recreate in the last five kilometers of the event. Finally Sebastiá Catllá managed to escape a few meters from his travel companion, Jesús Alberto García, which allowed him to win the victory with an approximate rent of half a minute. The third place of the podium also had its emotion, to Tapias it was getting very long the white route, which took advantage Julián Macho to be third.

After Tapias crossed the finish line the young man arrived Txomin Osoro, recently proclaimed Junior continental runner-up in the European specialty of Reinosa (Cantabria).

As for the females, Soraya García Álvarez, runner-up in Ansó, was the great dominator of the appointment. From beginning to end, Garcia showed his superiority, being the fastest in each of the sectors. The second place was for Amalia Grobas that in the last five kilometers on snow he managed to overtake Cristina Gutiérrez. Regarding the classification by clubs, the prize went to the ADT Campoo-Reinosa.

Before the awards ceremony back in Béjar, the president of the International Triathlon Federation (ITU), the Spanish Marisol Casado, put the finishing touch to the II Winter Triathlon Sierra de Béjar-La Covatilla with a talk on ' Triathlon and Olympism.

Source and photo: Dept. of Communication of the Federation of Triathlon of Castilla y León