The Americans Gwen Jorgensen and Lukas Verzbicas prevail in the ITU World Cup in Banyoles

Yesterday the lake of Banyoles hosted the Triathlon World Cup, the fourth round of the 2012 international triathlon calendar.

At 9:45 in the morning, the starting gun was fired for the women's event, which had a total of 40 participating triathletes. The first to get out of the water were the British Lucy Hall and Carolina Routier from Bahia.

Together they managed to distance themselves from their pursuers during the 40km of cycling and, despite their untimely crash in the 3rd lap, they arrived with an advantage of almost two minutes at the start of T2 over the chasing group formed by a score of athletes, led by Australians Erin Densham and Ashleigh Gentle, New Zealand Andrea Hewitt and American Gwen Jorgensen.

The last lap of the foot race began with the two Australians and the American competing for the podium, followed by a distance by Hewitt, the No.1 seed in this series. Finally, the American Jorgensen prevailed in the last moments (01:59:39) ahead of Densham (01:59:55) and Gentle (02:00:02).

Local Carolina Routier finished in 16th position and she has been very satisfied with the result achieved, since it represents another step in her career that is accumulating experience on the international circuit: “I am very happy for the future because I see myself with desire, enthusiasm and strength. I think I'll try to go to the Olympics (in Brazil). It is clear that after London there is a generational change, many people rethink after the Olympic year whether to continue or not, it is a step forward in the elite and at least I will try".

A thousand people gathered to witness the men's race which has been very close. About fifty triathletes left together from T1, and also from T2 with the only exception of Russian Vasiliev who arrived with about 40 seconds of advantage.

In the foot race, a leading group was created with the French Laurent Vidal, the Russian Dimitry Polyanskiy and the British Buckingham and Bowden. From behind, I link with them the American Lukas Verzbicas, the junior world champion.

On the last lap, Verzbicas showed his best form to win comfortably (1:47:27) ahead of Vidal (1:47:44). The podium was closed by Russian Dimitry Polyanskiy, who also finished 3rd in the World Series in Madrid three weeks ago.

Verzbicas has released his record on the World Cup circuit in his debut and was exultant with the victory "It has been great, my first World Cup and my first victory”. Regarding the analysis of his race, he explained that "Polyanskiy and Vidal started very well but at the last lap, without having planned it, I took the lead and pushed until the end".

Two Spaniards managed to enter the Top 10 of the test, Fernando Alarza in seventh position and Uxio Abuin in ninth. The rest of the Spanish representation was Jesús Gomar 13th, Antón Ruanova 14th, Vicente Hernández 28th followed by Ricardo Hernández in 29th place. Óscar Vicente has been forced to leave during the course of the race.

Among the authorities, it is worth highlighting the presence of the Mayor of Banyoles, Miquel Noguer, the Secretary of Sports of the Generalitat, Ivan Tibau, and the president of the UFEC (Union of Sports Federations of Catalonia).

Also present was Marisol Casado, president of the ITU, who in statements to TV3 recalled that "the Banyoles triathlon has always been a benchmark for Spanish triathlon" and has highlighted the city's long relationship with sport, which has organizing at least one uninterrupted triathlon event since 1986.

For his part, the Mayor of Banyoles, Miquel Noguer, has celebrated the success of the event and has expressed the will to once again host a new World Cup in June 2013. For Banyoles, that would mean hosting the third event international sport in three years, after last year's Premium European Cup.