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.

Favourite shows his strength in the Men´s race

In my race preview I expected the strong swimmers to have quite of an advantage due to the expected traffic on the bike course. Aquabike athletes started behind the triathletes, meaning that the faster aquabikers would come out in the middle of the slower triathletes. But it turned out that despite the many corners and narrow roads this wasn´t really a big issue. The rolling start stretched out the field enough for the fast aquabikers not to be blocked too much. Yes, it was a rolling start – a mass or wave start definitely would not have been possible in this event. This means that the head-to-head competitions that I´m writing about in this race report were kind of virtual. However, the man with the fastest swim time was probably also the first aquabiker out of the water. As expected strong swimmer Piotr ŁAZARONEK from Poland was the fastest swimmer, clocking a time of 24:07 for the 1900 metres swim, putting a gap of almost one and a half minute to Belgian Simon COOREVITS who came out second, while all the following athletes had a time gap of more than four minutes to the fast Pole. Just to put this into perspective: Piotr swam 25 seconds faster than the fastest pro triathlete and almost two minutes faster than the fastest age group triathlete that day.

Meanwhile, prerace favourite Mathieu DUMONT came out of the water 8:43 down on the leader in 42^nd position. It was to expect that Piotr will lose quite some time on the bike – but almost nine minutes seems like a quite remarkable gap. And there were other prerace favourites who were much closer behind the fast-swimming Pole. Denmark’s Tommy NIELSEN came out of the water in 5th position, about four minutes behind. In my race preview in didn´t mention him, because the 2021 national champion from Denmark “only” came in 4^th in the 2022 nationals. Since there was no title to defend, he decided to skip this years Danish Championships, which took place the very same day. And after the swim it looked like this might would pay off. Because the Dane is also pretty strong on the bike.

So is Ross HAMILTON who came out of the water just 17 seconds later, with two strong Belgians Bert ARNAUTS and Stijn DE PAUW also not far behind. But on the bike the Dane was clearly the strongest of this group that day. Just about halftime of the bike leg he passed the leading man from Poland, taking the lead in the race. While he managed to distance the other strong swimmers the question was if Mathieu DUMONT would be able to close the gap. And the World Champion gave a clear answer. Shortly after the Dane took the lead, the Frenchman came flying from behind. He finished the bike leg with a whopping average speed of 43.3 kph taking the overall win two minutes ahead of Tommy NIELSEN.

While the strong swimmers from Poland, Ireland and Belgium were fighting for the following places, there was another strong cyclist rolling up the field from behind. Germany´s Frank ERK showed a super strong performance on the bike, ending up passing most of the strong swimmers to take the third spot on the podium, five minutes behind the winner. The fight for the following places was pretty close. Next one to come in was Stijn DE PAUW about a minute and a half behind the podium, with Ross HAMILTON, Diederik PEMEN, Piotr ŁAZARONEK and  Bert ARNAUTS all came in within one more minute.

 

Surprise Podium in the Women´s race

There was also a clear favourite in the women´s race. Defending champion Amy PRITCHARD faced some strong competition though. After the swim it was Theresa LOWINUS from Germany to come out of the water first, closely followed by 2021 World Champion Sara BAUMANN. In third place last year´s European Champion finished the swim only a minute later. The Swiss athlete took the lead after the transition and also Amy passed the fastest swimmer from Germany soon on the bike, getting closer to the leading Swiss slowly but steady. Meanwhile two strong cyclists also made up their way to the top of the race. Reigning Cross Triathlon World Champion Carole PERROT came out of the water with a time gap of three minutes to the leading athletes. By the end of the first lap of the bike course she had passed the defending champion from England. So, the second lap started with a Swiss double lead.

While Carole soon also caught and passed Sara, Isabel GEERARDYN also got closer and closer to the podium spots. The Belgian came out of the water five minutes behind the leaders, now showing a strong performance on the bike. After finishing the first lap in roughly the same time as Sara and Amy, going into lap two about four and a half minutes behind, she put the hammer down in the second half of the bike leg. However, Carole was able to hold her speed continuously expanding her lead. The fight for the other podium spots got serious towards the end of the race though. At the last time check about 14 km before the finish, Amy caught Sara, passing the time check one second ahead. But Isabel closed the gap to them by almost four minutes over the last 30 km, leaving her with a time gap of only 45 more seconds for the last kilometres of the race.

Carole PERROT was out of reach though and took the World Champoinship title in her first ever aquabike race. In the final quite technical part of the course through the streets of Menen, Isabel GEERARDYN was clearly the fastest around the corners of Menen. She passed her competitors to cross the finishline in second place, 2:51 behind the winner. 30 seconds later it was the second Swiss Sara BAUMANN who had a bit more left in the tank, taking the third spot on the podium while definding champion Amy PRITCHARD had to settle for fourth place this time, coming in 50 seconds later.

The fastest swimmer Theresa LOWINUS finished the race in 5^th place, about six and a half minutes behind the winner. About four minutes later Dutch athlete Sylvia VAN BREDA came in 6^th. A minute later Britain´s Victoria ROTHWELL had the better end in a close fight for the next places, finishing a few seconds ahead of the two strong Germans Sandra WIRTH and Gabriele KECK.

 

And a big surprise in the medal´s table

As always Great Britain showed up with the biggest number of aquabike athletes by far (except the 2021 European Championships where they could not participate due to travel restrictions). And of course they always had a clear lead in the medal´s table. With 16 medals overall at the 2023 European Aquabike Championships British athletes still won the most medals. But another nation which wasn´t very present in previous years won the same number of medals. With 7 gold medals 4 silver medals and 4 bronze medals the athletes of hosting country Belgium showed super strong performances in the aquabike race. Although the only Belgian medal winner from last years Europeans, overall winner Adam LAMBRECHTS, was not there to defend his title on home soil. With 6 Belgian athletes finishing in the top 12 of the men´s race and also some female athletes in the top spots in their age groups let´s hope we will see some of them again in future international races outside Belgium.

Rank	Country
1.	Belgium	7	4	4
2.	Germany	4	5	4
3.	United Kingdom	4	4	8
4.	France	3	1	0
5.	Switzerland	2	2	0
6.	Denmark	2	0	0
7.	Poland	1	0	1
8.	Austria	0	3	0
9.	Netherlands	0	2	1
10.	Ireland	0	1	0
11.	Spain	0	0	2
12.	Italy	0	0	1

Just as British athletes also aquabikers from Germany came home with four European Championship titles. But with one more silver medal on the record, Great Britain ended up in third spot “only”. Aquabike athletes from seven countries came home as European Champions and twelve countries winning at least one medal.

Chapeau and congratulations to all finishers of the race. Special congratulations go out to Amy PRITCHARD. She might have not been the fastest overall this time, but still managed to take the European Championship title in her age group, making her the only athlete – male or female – to have four European Aquabike Championship titles on her record. Chapeau!