For many years British athletes were asking for it, wondering why there are national championships for all the other multisport disciplines over various distances, while aquabike – a discipline which is established for quite a while now on the British Islands -was always left behind.
I know this one comes ridiculously late as we are currently working on a big update. The Long Distance Aquabike World Championships in Townsville are more than a month ago now. Nevertheless, the outstanding performances we saw downunder certainly deserve to be honoured.
The Australian winter welcomed the athletes with blue sky and warm temperatures on race day. Though the water was still cool enough to make the race wetsuit legal. It was the first World Championship outside Europe since the very first edition in 2017 which happened to be in Penticton, Canada. As not too many athletes from Europe and North America were travelling over the ocean, the race brought up some new faces on the aquabike world’s podium and certainly a few surprises.
The Multisport World Championships in Townsville, Australia are already in full swing. As always, the Long Distance Aquabike race will be the big final alongside the Triathlon. It will be the first long distance aquabike championship race outside Europe since the very first edition in 2017 in Pentincton, Canada.
Race the Reef is the slogan of the event. I’m not exactly sure if you’ll get to see some corals during the swim. But the coastal area in north-east Queensland certainly provides a worthy setting for the seventh edition of the World Triathlon Multisport Championships.
The last months have been quite busy. We have many new exciting features in our pipeline which I hope will be available for you before the end of the year. While we are still continuously working to improve Aquabike.World it´s becoming more and more difficult to maintain our little Aquabike World in the usual quality.
One reason is that I had (and still have) to deal with some health issues which not only lead to a race free season for me, but also meant that I have to step down in terms of working hours.
Besides, I can’t maintain Aquabike.World on my own. I always had one of our employees helping mostly with event updates. Although it was always clear that there was no money to be made from this project, I hoped that it would at least generate enough income to pay the employee on a permanent basis. Unfortunately, I finally have to admit to myself that it’s not going to work out like that. I cannot continue to pay an employee out of my pocket forever. That´s why I´m reaching out for some support from the awesome aquabike community to keep Aquabike.World not only up and running but also make it possible to further improve it.
In this post I will show you nine ways on how you can help with that.
For the 6th time aquabike athletes in Europe competed for the title of the best aquabiker of the continent. The race in Coimbra, Portugal was very well organised, but still left some space for improvements which future organizer of big aquabike races should consider.
The race started with a rolling start in the Mondego River, three hours after the triathletes started their race for the European crown. For the first time in an international championship race, aquabikers had the race course for themselves, which was highly appreciated by all competitors.
The first races of the European Multisport Championships in Coimbra, Portugal are already done and dusted. The European Aquabike Championships will follow together with the Triathlon Championships next Saturday. Different to previous years it will not be the big final of the Multisport Week though as there are more non-championships races – including a standard distance and a full distance aquabike race – following on Sunday. And there´s another exciting premiere at this year´s European Championships. With the age group triathletes starting three hours before the aquabike athletes, aquabikers will have the full racecourse for themselves.
Last week the organizers of this year’s European Multisport Championship in Coimbra announced the course details as well as the race schedule and other details of the event. It’s a nine-day event packed not only with seven European Championships in several Multisport disciplines – of course in including aquabike on Saturday, June 22nd – but also with quite some more side events, including two more aquabike races. So if you’re going to Portugal you should definitely consider to participate in more than “only” the European Championships. However, also the European Championships race itself is worth the travel. Because there will be a premiere for aquabike athletes which they will certainly enjoy.
This might sound familiar to you: Looking at the elevation profile of the bike course of a race, wondering how hard those bumps and jags actually are, riding them up on the bike in the real world. The best way to find out is… well… get on your bike and ride them. OK, easier said then done when the event is not just around the corner. For those cases we have a reasonable alternative. You can ride the course at home on your smart trainer. Sure, it’s not as nice as riding outside in the sun. On the other hand, you can also ride the route in winter or in bad weather. In this article we show you how you can do that – it’s easier than you might think!
In the last part of our 2023 Aquabike Season Review we take a look at the races with the smallest and biggest winning margins. Last year we saw some quite impressive performances with comfortable victories and also races with only a few seconds between first and second place. We show you the closest and clearest wins in aquabike races during the last racing season.
The statistics in the second part of our season review already showed a significant growth of aquabike racing all around the world. This also becomes clear when you look at the starter numbers for the biggest races in 2023. Out of the ten biggest races in the history of aquabike racing no less than four took place last year. Other than in 2022 the world championships were the biggest races of the year, both with more than 300 finishers. We also had quite big fields of aquabike athletes at the US and European Championships. But there were also impressive numbers in some non-championship races around the world.