Schulz slips past Bourseaux for para-triathlon title
26.05.2014
More than 60 athletes from 17 countries raced across five classes in Besancon, France.
Germany’s Martin Schulz beat the host nation’s Yannick Bourseaux to the men’s PT4 title by a slim four seconds on Sunday (25 May) at the 2014 Besancon ITU World Para-Triathlon event
The German clocked a total time of 54:25, with his strongest portion of the race coming in the final run. Bourseaux finished second in 54:29, with Spain’s Jairo Ruiz Lopez taking third in 56:34.
Seveteen different countries in total were represented by 60 athletes at the event, which was a major jump from the 2013 event — the first in para-triathlon — which featured 48 athletes, 30 of whom were from France.
In the other men’s classes, the Netherlands’ Geert Schipper took the PT1 title (59:32), Italy’s Michele Ferrarin (1:05.34) strode to victory in the PT2, Alessio Borgato (1:00.53) won the PT3 event, and Great Britain’s Haseeb Ahmad (55:28) finished first in the PT5 class.
On the women’s side, Great Britain raced to two titles, with para-triathlon star Clare Cunningham setting the tone with a victory in the PT4 class in a time of 1:05.40.
Her teammate Sarah Pearson (1:19:07) finished first in the PT3 event.
Elsewhere, Italy’s Rita Cuccuru (1:19:23) won the PT1, France’s Elise Marc (1:29:00) recorded a victory in the PT2 and Spain’s Susana Rodriguez raced to the title in the PT5.
The next ITU World Para-Triathlon event will take place on Saturday (31 May) in London, Great Britain. The European Championships will take place later this summer from 20-22 June in Kitzbuhel, Austria, ahead of the World Championships, which will take place from 29 August - 1 September in Edmonton, Canada.