World Winter Triathlon Champions Crowned in Andorra

NATURLANDIA, Andorra — It was a magnificent day in Andorra for the Italian team, with Franco Pesavento adding another gold medal to his tally and claiming the Winter Triathlon world title, while Mattia Tanara finished in the first place of the U23 category, and Guglielmo Giuliano crossed the finish line in second place in the Junior race. The 2022 Andorra World Triathlon Winter Championships men’s elite podium was completed with Marek Rauchfuss (CZE), who finished in second place, while the athlete representing the Russian Federation Evgenii Uliashev took the bronze medal.

Men’s podium at the 2022 Winter World Triathlon Championships (Tommy Zaferes)

Twenty-six men toed the start line on a beautiful and cold morning in Naturlandia, the mountain resort that hosts for the second consecutive year the Winter Triathlon Festival, to vie for the world title in the Elite and U23 categories, with a new format of a 3-lap snow run before transitioning to a hilly and technical mountain bike course and onto the two-lap ski, to then repeat it all again before crossing the finish line. In total, 8.2km run, 13.2 km bike and 12.4km ski.

And it was Krilan Le Bihan (FRA) who set the pace for the first kilometers of the run, followed only by the young rising star of winter triathlon, Franco Pesavento (ITA) and Felix Duchampt (ROU), making his first attempt to the winter version of triathlon. Behind them, the field started to stretch while seven-time world champion Pavel Andreev kept an eye on the leaders, not allowing the distance to grow more than 30 seconds.

By the time the athletes jumped on their bikes for the first time, Pesavento was leading the small group, quickly leaving behind Le Bihan and Duchampt, struggling with the technical downhills in the mud and snow, and with Andreev and Marek Rauchfuss quickly closing the gap. Other great bikers like Guiseppe Lamastra (ITA), Sebastian Neef (GER) and Alessandro Saravalle (ITA) were able to put themselves on a comfortable position to fight for the podium spots, but as soon as the athletes were on their skis it was the Russian who showed his skills to almost catch Pesavento, still on the lead even though he had to serve a penalty of 15 seconds for mounting on his bike before the line.

Pesavento, winner also of the Winter Duathlon World Championships two days earlier, knew that he would be hard to beat on the run and went full gas on the second leg on his running shoes, opening again a significant break with Andreev, while Lamastra, Viorel Palici (ROU) and Mikhail Antipin (RTF) where behind them fighting for the podium places. But the most dangerous threat to them would come from behind showing incredible skills on the bike.

Marek Rauchfuss (CZE) only needed the two laps on the bike to quickly pass one athlete after the other, including the leader, Pesavento, a few meters before heading to the last transition of the day. With the two of them playing cat and mouse for the first of the two laps of the ski, it looked like it will be a close finish and so it was. The young Italian managed to find the final extra gear in the last ramp on the skis to cross the finish line triumphant to claim his first Winter Triathlon world title just two years after being crowned U23 world champion on his hometown, Asiago.

In the women’s race, Daria Rogizina stormed the field in Andorra to claim her second Winter Triathlon world title. Italian Sandra Mairhofer crossed the finish line in second to open the scoreboard for the Italian team, while Norway’s Elizabeth Sveum grabbed the bronze medal.

The frigid temperatures in Andorra forced the officials to make some adjustments in the bike course to avoid some downhills with ice patches, but the course was still hard enough: a 3-lap snow run before transitioning to a hilly and technical mountain bike course of two laps and onto the two-lap ski – all to repeat again before crossing the finish line. In total, 8.2km run, 13.2 km bike and 12.4km ski.

With the temperatures only slightly above freezing, 14 women lined up for the start of the Elite and U23 2022 Andorra World Triathlon Winter Triathlon Championships. And the two times world champion Daria Rogozina showed from the start that she will be the one to beat. In the first lap of the run, she managed to break away from the rest of the field, and she never looked back, doing solo the whole race. She had most of the fastest splits of the day, and dominated the race from the beginning to the end.

For the rest of the field, it was the battle for the silver and bronze what kept the race alive, with the 2021 world champion Mairhofer playing the cat and mouse game with Svetlana Surikova (RTF) and Svetlana Sokolova (RTF), both of them staying quite close behind and avoiding penalties.

It was in the second leg when Mairhofer started to show her cards and pushed really hard on the bike, knowing that the lead was almost impossible to catch, but breaking away from the Russian athletes. And coming from behind, it was a matter of the first few meters of the bike that Norwegian Sveum proved that she is one of the strongest athletes on the bike and ski combination. A flat tire for Sokolova right after leaving transition for the fourth time ended with her medal hopes, and Sveum continued the chase with only one thing in mind: the podium that slipped through her fingers last year, when she crossed the finish line in third place but was then disqualified for not serving a penalty.

The last leg of the ski was just a magnificent display of Rogozina, in full form in Andorra after two weeks in the beautiful resort of Naturlandia getting used to the altitude, and fully recovered from giving birth to her first son. She crossed the finish line to claim her third world crown, with a difference of over four minutes with Maihofer, who finished in the second place.