Triumph and Record for Clemente Alonso in the Challenge Barcelona-Maresme 201

This weekend the Challenge Barcelona-Maresme was held, qualifying for the Spanish Long Distance Championship, which this year has a Spanish champion again. In 2009 it was Marcel Zamora who premiered the record and in 2011 it was Clemente Alonso who took the glory in one of the fastest growing long distance triathlons in Europe. Calella de Mar gave herself back to the cause of triathlon and the organization took another step forward with a competition

Clemente's victory means closing a spectacular season, in which he has won in Zarautz and brushed victory at the Ironman Zurich. Clemente's triumph is more than deserved, the triumph of a brave approach, which can sometimes be a sports suicide but which had a happy and brilliant ending. In the end, the victory was accompanied by a fantastic record, taking the record from Marcel Zamora, who in 2009 scored 8: 15.37 to 8: 15.25 for Clemente Alonso

His victory is born from the first stroke in the sea. He was always in the lead. He came out in the leading group of swimming and from the first meter in the cycling sector he decided that he should put a frantic pace. Nobody could follow him and each kilometer his difference was increasing. At the halfway point, he already had three minutes with the chasing group led by the British Bayliss and the Ukrainian Blokhin, while behind the long-term European champion Miquel Blanchart and the Germans Bittner and Wagner were unable to cut back.

This enormous effort started the marathon circuit with a significant advantage. 8 minutes on Bayliss and Blokhin. Clemente's tactic usually doesn't work out. Going to the maximum on the bike usually has negative consequences in the athletics sector but in this case, Clemente Alonso knew how to really suffer. The marathon was a nightmare for the triathlete from Salamanca but the head-leg battle was won by the head.

 

Kilometer after kilometer he watched as time was being cut short. It seemed that it was going to sink, but it knew how to draw forces that seemed that did not exist. The German Bittner put pressure but Clemente perfectly measured the difference and dosed wisely. That is what experience is worth and Clemente has a lot.

The last five kilometers were of enormous suffering for the winner. He felt that the German was approaching him but despite the limited strength he maintained the difference and gave himself the pleasure of achieving the record. Almost nothing…

Regarding the female category, the race remained very even in the first two sectors but in the marathon it was the Australian Mitchelle Mitchell who was stronger, beating the Hungarian Erika Csomor at the finish line by 3:37, that he couldn't keep up in the final 10 kilometers. The podium was completed by the British Lucy Gossage, 6 minutes behind Mitchell.

CLEMENTE ALONSO: "I have never suffered so much in a competition"

An exhausted Clemente Alonso with almost no strength to smile assured that “I have never suffered so much in my life in a competition. I don't know where I got the strength to win but I did it and I am very happy with this result in a test of the international prestige of Challenge.

The man from Salamanca did not feel that “in swimming he would have gone fast but he has. Later on the bike I have seen people with doubts and I have decided to throw. I have seen that differences end and I have gone to the limit to make a difference. This tactic usually goes wrong because you empty yourself and you collapse in the marathon but I have known how to suffer because I have had a really bad time ”.

In the last sector, Clemente feels that he has never been comfortable, that he has had to fight to the fullest. In fact, the gesture he made to the German Bittner as soon as he saw him enter betrayed the suffering he experienced. He looked at him and represented something like, you have made me get everything out, you have killed me, but the winner was Clemente who did not see himself as a winner: “until I saw the finish line because I have had confused feelings, sometimes I saw myself as the winner and other I did not see it. In fact, in the last kilometers I was very dizzy and I didn't have them all with me but I won and that's what counts ”.

Classifications

Elite Men

1. Clemente Alonso (ESP) 8.15: 25

2. Per Bittner (ALE) 8.18: 53

3. Dejan Patrcevic (CRO) 8.23: 10

4. Víctor del Corral (ESP) 8.28: 19

5. Jens Pettersen (DEN) 8.30: 01

 

Elite Women

1. Michelle Mitchell (AUS) 9.15: 00

2. Erika Csomor (HUN) 9.18: 47

3. Lucy Gossage (GBR) 9.21: 01

There are no previous results.

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