The 5th European Aquabike Championships in Menen, Belgium brought out a favourite´s victory but also some surprises with quite a few strong Belgian athletes mixing up the top ranks. We had a beautiful, perfectly organized race in perfect weather conditions.
On August 27th the 5th European Aquabike Championships will take place in Menen, Belgium. We have the record number of 295 aquabike athletes on the startlist and can certainly look forward to an exciting race. The race organizers from Decospan Triatlon Menen did a great job, also putting quite some thoughts into how to serve not only triathletes but also aquabikers well. So, everything looks well prepared for a great day of racing through Flanders.
Lately I had some controversial discussions about how the points for the ranking are calculated. Since this also might be an issue with the new #1 and how he got there, I want to say a few words about this beforehand.
The 2023 European Aquabike Championships will be held in Menen (Belgium) on August 27th. And this is definitely a race to look forward for aquabike athletes, as the organizers are obviously paying much more attention to aquabike athletes as in previous World or European Championship races.
If you would like to compete in the Europeans but have not yet raced in an international championship race before, you might not be aware of how to register for it. Because the registrations for those events are processed through the national federations – and this is a bit different in every country. In this article we collected information about the top 15 European countries in the Aquabike.World country ranking about the registration process but also about the deadlines which are coming up pretty soon in some countries.
You might think it´s a bit exaggerating to write an article about the finish of an aquabike race. Well, after repeated issues with the location of the finish line in recent championships, most of all the disaster at the World Championships in Ibiza a few weeks ago, I think it´s well worth to take a closer look about this in future events.
The Long Distance World Championship in Ibiza was the biggest aquabike race since the 2019 World Championships in Pontevedra. Not only because of the big number of starters, but also because of the quite demanding course there were big points to grab for the best athletes in the race (read more about how points are calculated). So it´s no surprise that we saw big changes in the Aquabike.World Ranking after the race. All athletes inside the top 10 were competing in Ibiza. But it´s not the new World Champion who is now holding the top spot in the rankings.
186 male and 127 female athletes finished the Long Distance Aquabike Championships last Sunday in Ibiza. After smaller fields of starters in the previous editions this was the biggest aquabike race since the 2019 World Championships in Pontevedra (where they will again be held in 2025). After the 3 km swim athletes had to tackle a quite demanding 116 km bike course under perfect weather conditions – except maybe for the wind which certainly didn´t make the bike leg easier. The race was perfectly organized – apart from one little (or maybe not so little) thing. But more about that a bit later…
In most parts of North America and Europe the Triathlon and Aquabike racing season has not started yet. For many athletes it will start with the biggest race of the season. After the Multisport World Championships had to be split up to several events the last two years, there will be a fully packed racing programme this week in Ibiza with Duathlon, Aquathlon, Cross Triathlon and Duathlon, Mixed Relay and the Grande Finale on Sunday, May 7th – the Long Distance Triathlon and Aquabike World Championships.
It might sound weird to ask this question on an aquabike website. As aquabike athlete you have some chances to race for glory at National Championships but also at European and World Championships. There is however no option to race for money. But there will be one exception in 2023.
In the last part of our 2022 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 in 2022.