It´s been a turbulent racing week at the European Multisport Championships in Bilbao. With almost 300 athletes starting the race, the aquabike race attracted way more athletes than the World Championships in Samorin about a month ago and also way more than any other European Aquabike Championship race before. The feedback of the athletes came out a little mixed though. But it was certainly a race with impressive performances, and well deserved old and new European Champions.

Unfortunately there have been some downsides. Most of all was regarding communication by the race organizer. Since the finishline for the Triathlon is more than a kilometre away from the transition zone, I sent a request regarding the aquabike finish a few days before the race. The answer was actually quite clear and sounded like a good solution: “The finish line is about 60 metres away from the Transition area exit. Surface will be concrete without carpet. All this information will be explained in the briefing next Friday.” But the race briefing left many athletes with quite some questions about the race. And the Q&A session which was planned afterwards got cancelled. It wasn´t until shortly before the race that athletes got the final information that the aquabike finishline will be at T2 entry. And apparently this was mainly communicated in Spanish – leaving those athletes who didn´t get any translation with wrong information or at least uncertainty about where their race actually ends.

The decision however was certainly welcomed by athletes who have serious issues with running because of injuries. But not everybody was happy with that – especially in the context of how the race was scheduled. With the aquabike race starting right after the triathlon, many aquabike athletes had quite some “traffic” while trying to get to the finishline as fast as possible while triathletes took it easy getting into T2 preparing for their upcoming half marathon to run.

But let´s start with the swim. It was a rolling swim start from a pontoon. Well organized and the tide fortunately wasn´t an issue. Different to the aquathlon race the day before. Two aquathlon athletes got carried away from the tide, leading to the situation that a speed boat went right through the field of athletes to rescue them. An incident that hopefully leads to better planning by the organizer regarding the tide times in the future. And there was another significant difference between the aquathlon and the aquabike and triathlon race at the swim exit. While aquathlon athletes had to get out of the water over super slippery stairs, the swim exit for aquabikers was quite different, but no less tricky. After finishing the swim course aquabike athletes had to crawl back up on the pontoon. No handlebars, no stairs, no helpers. I have to say the footage looks quite funny, but it certainly wasn´t that funny for many athletes who were in quite some trouble getting up on the platform.

After making it out of the water athletes had quite a long run through transition. Also certainly not everybody´s favourite. Other than the bike course. There were only positive words about the beautiful bike course and especially the marshals on the road from athletes after the race. But besides the not ideal finish of the aquabike race at the end of the bike course there was another post race issue. There was a great after race service, with massages and a good choice of food and drinks. At the triathlon finish. About 1,2 km away from the aquabike finish.

So I´d like to say a few words about those issues. When a race organizer includes an aquabike option in his triathlon race, it doesn´t really come with additional costs (despite a few more awards) and the additional efforts in terms of race organizing are quite manageable. But there are a few things you have to think about in advance. To quote a race organizer from Austria “That´s not rocket science”. Nevertheless I can understand if a local race organizer who adds an aquabike option in his race with only a handful of aquabikers signing up for the race doesn´t waste a lot of thoughts about those things. But this was a European Championship race with almost 300 athletes attending, paying a lot of money to travel to Bilbao from all over Europe, staying there for a few days and competing in their season highlight race. This should deserve a little bit more attention. Just as the performance of the aquabike athletes.

Speaking about performance, I would like to point out that the winner of the men´s aquabike race came off the bike no less than seven minutes ahead of the fastest age group triathlete. In the women´s race the aquabike winner was about 5 minutes earlier at T2 than the fastest female triathlete. Although all aquabikers competing in such a race of course deserve to be treated like full athletes just as in any other multisport discipline, I would like to point out that there are people training hard and performing on a (at least close to) professional level in aquabike races. I think they do not deserve the roll of an unappreciated supporting actor for triathletes in such a big race.

So let´s get to the more positive sides of the race. I already mentioned the stunning performance of the winner of the men´s race. Those who are following aquabike racing a little bit and maybe read our race preview can probably guess who it was. Adam LAMBRECHTS was certainly not a surprise winner of the race, showing an incredible performance in the water and especially on the bike once again. Also the other men on the unofficial overall podium (since there is no official overall ranking) weren´t a big surprise. Second placed in the European Championships race was British athlete Kris WHITELAW. After coming out of the water only four seconds behind Irishman Ross HAMILTON it seems like the two of them more or less stayed together for most of the bike course. In the end Kris came in just 32 seconds ahead of the Irish National Aquabike Champion. Despite their remarkable performances there was another aquabiker faster as them. Besides the European Championships there was also an open race for aquabikers. And there it was Ander SANCHEZ ECHEVARRIA who showed a remarkable performance in the water, coming out even more than two minutes earlier as Adam Lambrechts. He eventually lost some time on the bike, finishing the race five minutes behind the old and new European Champion, but held off the second placed in the European´s by about two minutes.

Fourth in the men´s race was Oliver RAU, who came in eleven minutes behind the winner. So there were some time gaps between the fastest men in the aquabike race. But how strong the field of aquabike athletes actually was shows the fact that another 10 athletes came in within five minutes behind the fourth placed German.

The women´s race also saw a victory of the big favourite of the race. But Amy PRITCHARD certainly had some serious contenders for the title. Coming out of the water in under 30 minutes she was amongst the fastest men of the race. But still one and a half minute behind Irati MENDI GARCIA and not too far ahead of other strong athletes from Spain and Czechia. While the fastest female swimmer could not keep up with Amy on the bike, her fellow countrywoman Virginia BERASATEGI LUNA who finished the swim a minute behind the later European Champion barely lost any time on the bike, finishing only one minute and 33 seconds down on the British athlete. About five minutes behind it was young athlete Julie BALCAROVA from the Czech Republic who completed the podium. With a strong performance on the bike Netherland´s Babette FOKKENS-ANCERY missed the podium by only a minute and a few seconds, while the leading woman after the swim Irati MENDI GARCIA came in another minute behind in 5^th place.

So let´s have a look at the medals table of the European Aquabike Champoinships:

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

Of course not a surprise that Brithish Athletes took the majority of medals, followed by the Spaniards who not only were racing on home soil but by now also have quite some aquabike races in Spain to prepare well for the season highlight. Having medal winning athletes from 12 different countries certainly shows, that aquabike is slowly but steadily developing as a popuar multisport discipline on the European Continent.

Chapeau and congratulations to all finishers of the race. And a special shout-out to Michael SMALLWOOD, who finished the race in 156^th place. At 76 years of age the oldest competitor of the race finished in a mindblowing time of 03:33:57, beating more than 100 of his often much younger competitors.