We previewed the big World Triathlon Championship Series Race taking place in Sardinia this weekend – WTCS Alghero – and now we get to offer our readers the chance to watch the race for free. World Triathlon is offering free access to TriathlonLive.tv for the weekend so you can take in the race, which is the first WTCS race of the 2028 Olympic qualification period.

The women’s race goes at 11:00 am local time (5 am EST) and the men start at 14:00 local time (8 am EST).

Here’s how to access the free coverage:

1. Head to TriathlonLive using this link: https://www.triathlonlive.tv/paywalls?context=LZsgS2Dedeac~JTm0Vr4UN~0xnVdKGtB
2. Click watch now on the Alghero Race Pass option 
3. Sign in or SIgn up for TriathlonLive – don’t worry it’s free! 

You will be redirected to the check out page. Enter code MYRACEPASS and ‘complete order’. No payment, no credit card details required.

Here are a few more facts about this weekend’s race:

• There are nine WTCS winners competing: Alex Yee, Matt Hauser, Hayden Wilde, Miguel Hidalsgo, Vasco Vilaça, Dorian Conninx, Cassandre Beaugrand, Georgia Taylor-Brown and Beth Potter.
• Alex Yee won the race in Sardinia (WTCS Cagliari) three years in a row from 2022 to 2024. Georgia Taylor-Brown won two years in a row (2022 and 2023), while Cassandre Beaugrand took the 2024 and 2025 victories. The men’s defending champion is Miguel Hidalgo.
• This was one of the few times Matt Hauser didn’t win a draft-legal race when he competed last year – he competed in seven WTCS races and missed the podium once. His four wins (Yokohama, Hamburg, French Riviera and the Wollongong Grand Final) were a record. He finished second in Abu Dhabi and Alghero and eighth in Karlovy Vary.
• There are 55 men racing and 44 women.
• It’s an Olympic distance race, although the bike is a touch long at 40.5 km. (1.5 km swim and 10 km run.)
• The winners take home US$19,000, with prize money dropping to $3,000 for 10th. Prize money is paid out to 30th spot.

Enhanced Games Underwhelms

We wrote about the Enhanced Games earlier this year (see below), and last weekend’s racing didn’t exactly produce the results organizers had hoped for.

In fact things went so badly that investors in Enhanced Group Inc., the publicly traded parent company of the Enhanced Games, “watched its stock fall by almost half,” according to Marathon Handbook.

The event was supposed to be a marketing avenue for Enhanced Group Inc., which is set to become an online pharmacy for testosterone and other performance drugs, along with various supplements. According to SwimSam, the company saw almost $800 million in market value disappear once the New York Stock Exchange opened on Tuesday.

The Enhanced Games took place last Sunday night on the Las Vegas Strip. The world records organizers had promised never materialized – the only record set was by Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev, who swam 20.81 for 50 m using a banned swim suit and while doping. Three other events were won by athletes who said they were racing without taking any illegal drugs.

As USA Today put it, the Enhanced Games “failed to live up to their own hype” and also showed “that doping can only help athletes who are already elite rather than make a ‘pretty good’ swimmer an Olympic medalist.”

Which probably isn’t the marketing message Enhanced Group Inc. was hoping for.

IRONMAN 70.3 Happy Valley Start List Announced

The field for the next IRONMAN Pro Series race in North America has been announced. The IRONMAN 70.3 North American Championship will take place in Happy Valley, Pennsylvania on June 14. There will be US$75,000 up for grabs at the race.

Defending women’s champion Lydia Russell will wear race #1 in Happy Valley, but she’ll have some stiff competition, including Americans Jackie Hering, who hasn’t finished a race outside the top five this year and won IRONMAN 70.3 Dallas in March, Danielle Lewis and Grace Alexander (who has been on a roll with wins at IRONMAN 70.3 Gulf Coast and Chattanooga). Add to that mix Canadians Paula Findlay, who bounced back from a DNF in Oceanside to take second in Chattanooga, and Tamara Jewett, who started her season off with a win at Challenge Wanaka and took third at 70.3 Geelong. The down under crew will be represented by Kiwi Hannah Berry, who was second at IRONMAN New Zealand, and Australia’s Grace Thek, who finished one spot ahead of Jewett in Geelong. Here’s the full women’s start list:

Sam Long, who bounced back from a tough day at IRONMAN Texas with a win at IRONMAN 70.3 Gulf Coast and a fourth at 70.3 Chattanooga, will certainly be one of the pre-race favourites, but there are more than a few big names who are legitimate contenders for the win, or at least a podium finish. Long’s countrymen Matt Hanson (currently second in the IRONMAN Pro Series standings), Ben Kanute, Trevor Foley (this year’s IRONMAN New Zealand winner) and Matthew Marquardt (this year’s IRONMAN South Africa winner) are more than likely to be in the mix, while Aussie Sam Appleton is another to watch. One name that is well down the start list but could be a factor is Morgan Pearson, who won T100 Dubai last year and took second at the T100 Final in Qatar, and another short-course specialist, Matthew McGoey, who just took third at Supertri Austin.

The post We Noticed: Free WTCS Alghero Coverage, Enhanced Games Flop and More first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

Over the past three months, I have been training on and off with the Amazfit T-Rex 3 Pro. This is one of the newest watches from Amazfit, and it is supposed to be able to do it all. Whether you’re a trail junkie who needs a rugged watch for your off-road runs and rides, or a triathlete who sticks to the comforts of smooth roads and calm pools in training, the T-Rex 3 Pro should have you covered.

And, for the most part, it does. If I were to sum up my experience with this watch, I’d say it was just fine. Nothing more, nothing less. I wanted to love it, but if I’m being honest, this is not a product that I would end up purchasing myself. Here’s why.

Tracking Workouts with the T-Rex 3 Pro

My first few workouts with the T-Rex 3 Pro were pool swims. Similarly to my tests with the Amazfit Balance 2, this watch was not great in the water. It took only a few laps for the T-Rex to short me on my distance tally. In multiple 2,500-metre swims, it never recorded more than 2,000 metres.

To be fair, there were a couple hundred metres of kick in each of those workouts, and many GPS watches tend to miss that part of pool swims. However, I don’t know where the other few hundred metres of my swims disappeared to. They were standard swims with nothing fancy — mostly freestyle — but the watch consistently missed full laps.

You’re not likely to buy a watch specifically to take it for pool swims, so my opinion of the T-Rex was not decided by those workouts. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, any open water near where I live in Canada is still quite cold, so I have not been able to take the T-Rex for any outdoor swims. I have, however, taken it on plenty of outdoor rides and runs, so let’s get to those.

Firstly, the watch took its time acquiring a GPS signal for every run and ride. There were times when I got tired of waiting around and started running or biking without the watch recording. The T-Rex 3 Pro always caught up and made that GPS connection eventually, but on a couple of occasions, five whole minutes passed before the watch told me it was ready to record.

Whenever the watch did finally connect to GPS, it was quite accurate with its recordings. I made sure to go on routes for which I knew the exact distances, and I also wore a rival company’s watch that I know to be very accurate with its GPS tracking.

Other than the few times when I started riding or running before the watch was tracking me (which meant it of course missed mileage in the final recording), the T-Rex 3 Pro was always bang-on with the distances. It matched the other watch, and they were both true to the route distances that I had anticipated before the workouts.

That’s a big pro for this watch, especially for the trail community for whom it is designed. No matter where you’re riding or running, you want the best and most accurate tracking. The T-Rex 3 Pro will give you that. 

The Cons of the T-Rex 3 Pro

There were several other negatives that came with this watch. These may not be deal-breakers for other athletes, but personally, I don’t want to have to worry about my watch glitching out on me before, during or after a workout — and that is exactly what happened on multiple occasions.

Firstly, the watch screen locks during workouts. This is a feature included in many sport watches, and it’s one I can get behind. This way, if you accidentally touch the screen, you won’t unintentionally pause, end or disrupt the recording. It’s the way that you unlock the T-Rex 3 Pro that frustrated me.

With other watches I’ve used, you maybe have to hold a button down to unlock it, but the T-Rex requires you to double-tap the screen. When this works, it’s way quicker and simpler than those other watches with the button-holding, but the issue is that it didn’t work quite a few times. This left me unable to stop the recording between sets, at coffee stops on rides, or for whatever other reason. Any triathlete can imagine just how annoying that is to watch the time tick by when you’re resting and not moving, therefore skewing your final workout metrics.

Another issue I ran into was actually caused by this glitch, at least initially. I had taken the watch for a run, and when I was finished, I couldn’t unlock the screen to end the session. I tried for several minutes, but ultimately gave up and left the watch on my bedside table, where I forgot about it and the unfinished workout for a bit.

Cut to the middle of the night a couple of days later and I was awoken by the watch speaking to me. It was telling me the final workout totals before it shut off. (The battery drained quicker than usual since it was recording a run that entire time.) This didn’t seem like a big deal, but in the subsequent workouts, it came back to be a much bigger annoyance that has persisted since then.

My next session was a bike ride. It recorded it just fine the whole way through, but when I ended the workout, I got a report from that run that I never wrapped up. Instead of a 90-minute bike ride, the watch told me about my 34-hour run (it died just after the 34-hour mark) from more than a week earlier.

This was sort of strange at the time, but I shrugged it off. That is, until my next workout, which was a three-mile run. Once again, it tracked just fine during the run, but when I completed it, I got a report for those same 34 hours during which I couldn’t end that other run. This has been an ongoing issue that hasn’t resolved itself, even after I cleared the watch’s workout history.

All watch and tech companies have products that suffer glitches, and they are often fixed by doing a system reset or update. Ultimately, that isn’t the biggest deal, but at the same time, it’s an annoyance that Amazfit patrons would of course rather not have to deal with.

More Pros of the T-Rex

There is one more big positive that comes with the Amazfit T-Rex 3 Pro, and that is its tremendous battery life. As I’ve said, the watch recorded that one run for 34 hours before tapping out and dying, and it hadn’t been at a full charge before I started the recording.

There were stretches when I was using other watches and I didn’t touch this one for two weeks or more at a time. I eventually went back to the T-Rex to find it still with plenty of life left. This is of course when it wasn’t being used at all, but even so, that’s impressive. The watch comes in two face sizes (44 mm and 48 mm), with the smaller of the two boasting 17 days of battery life and the larger lasting up to 25 days on a single charge.

The Verdict

The cons I’ve listed may very well be nit-picky. Maybe I’m not patient enough and should chill out a bit while my watch tries to locate a GPS signal before workouts. Likewise, maybe I’m too easily annoyed by a slight glitch like the watch screen not unlocking when I want it to. Perhaps a factory reset on the watch isn’t too much to ask to fix a technical error like the recurring case of the 34-hour run.

In my opinion, though, if you’re spending hundreds of dollars on a sports watch (the T-Rex 3 Pro retails for $399), you shouldn’t have to put up with silly issues like these ones. I’ve used many watches that connect to GPS in seconds, I’ve never had an issue unlocking my watches and I have most certainly not been required to reset everything to fix a bug in any other watch. The watch does some things very well, but I don’t know if that’s worth the negatives you’ll have to put up with.

The post Watch Review: Neither Good nor Bad, the Amazfit T-Rex 3 Pro Is Just Fine first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

IRONMAN recently hosted a new full-distance race in the United States for the first time since the one-off IRONMAN Alaska in 2022. IRONMAN Jacksonville welcomed 1,900 entrants for its inaugural edition, with approximately 1,400 athletes crossing the finish line. For a new, early-season IRONMAN that had a relatively short runway (only being announced in early September of last year), it was a success from an athlete perspective.

It also, however, was a massive traffic disruptor in the area. Traffic was snarled for hours, as reported by local news. As one would probably expect for a full-distance race, the biggest issue was the bike course. Drivers were frequently stuck, or re-routed constantly as they attempted to find a way around the course. Some, unfortunately, took matters into their own hands, with two collisions with athletes; none were deemed serious. There was also a near-miss with a drunk driver who swerved through both the bike and run courses; he was arrested and charged with eight felonies and a dozen misdemeanors.

These types of issues are common and, in Jacksonville’s case, for two reasons. First, it’s the general type of teething problems that come from hosting an event in a city for the first time. You don’t ever really know how traffic will ebb and flow on race day until you’ve seen where the choke points actually are, and how drivers respond to it. The second, of course, is the population density of the area. There’s approximately 1.8 million residents in the Jacksonville metro area, and is the 38th most populous metro area in the country. It’s the third largest metro area to currently host an IRONMAN event, trailing The Woodlands and Sacramento.

In other words — it’s a lot of people. And, despite IRONMAN and the city of Jacksonville putting it just about everywhere that the race was coming and that there would be traffic impacts (heck, me here in Oregon saw it on every platform I can think of), that’s just too many people to really know that it’s happening. Even local government officials claimed, after the fact, that they did not know that the race was going to be impacting their community until either the day before the event, or while sitting in traffic.

As you would expect, the complaints were thick and fast from residents. The sheriff of St. John’s County, where a large part of the bike course took place, denounced the event and discouraged it from returning. For its part, Jacksonville released a statement, acknowledging that there had been pain points but that they were committed to following through on their three-year contract with IRONMAN.

“We are a world-class city, and IRONMAN chose us because of that. We benefit from the tremendous economic impact, the global exposure, the energy on our riverfront, and the pride on the faces of athletes crossing that finish line. We have a three-year commitment to this exciting event, and we intend to honor it by getting better every year IRONMAN Jacksonville comes to town. That means celebrating what worked and being honest about what could have been done better.

We are committed to a smoother experience for everyone next year, and are already in conversations with IRONMAN organizers, JSO, and city staff to conduct a full after-action review to make sure traffic and safety concerns are meaningfully addressed.“

Those conversations started the Monday following the event. All of this seems normal.

What is not normal, though, was the online discourse of some members of our broader multisport community, and the belittling of those who had taken issue with the IRONMAN event. Some of those comments, posted publicly on various social platforms, include the following:

• Directed at St. John’s County Sheriff Robert Hardwick: “Tough shit! Get with the program young fella!”
• Towards a couple whose wedding was disrupted by traffic: “I do feel bad for those that had wedding planned, but….they should have backup plans for sure and it’s not like brides aren’t checking everything prior to.”
• “I’m so sick of hearing all the complaints. It was one day. What’s the problem?”
• “Oh, but it blocked all those businesses that couldn’t get any business along the blocked roads! I loved that argument, one day of business as opposed to the week that people not normally in town were going to be there.”
• “The ignorant, impatient, entitled people in our society never ceased to amaze me. Oh lawd, it took me 10 extra minutes to get home today. The world is coming to an end!!”
• “Those people are just jealous they aren’t Ironmans!!”

And this, my fellow triathletes, is how we piss off the communities we are entirely dependent on in order to even have races in the first place.

Let’s rip off the band aid: we are neither as inspirational nor special as our sport (including us, here at Slowtwitch) tell ourselves. Triathlon, and especially full distance triathlon, is a logistical nightmare on its best days. What generally makes for a fantastic course for athletes (closed to traffic, scenic, single-loop) are hellacious for the communities hosting us. It’s how we wound up with the multi-loop courses at the former IRONMAN Arizona, and currently in The Woodlands for Texas; it helps to minimize the disruption because to have as safe of a course as possible, you must limit interactions with vehicles.

We, as athletes, are not entitled to have races on these roads. It’s why there’s a permitting process. It’s why there are so many stakeholders at play. And we ultimately need to be good partners. That partnership extends from just showing up and spending dollars in these communities, but by also understanding their concerns and needs while visiting their cities and towns. It means, for instance, spending money in some of the communities beyond those where swim or transition is located. Or it might mean ensuring that you know the traffic laws of that community while out on a ride.

But, what it is not part of that entitlement is simply sweeping complaints under the rug, and assuming that because you spend money in a community, that people should be thankful for your presence. There are significantly less challenging and expensive ways to draw tourism dollars to an area than hosting a full-distance triathlon. And we’ve seen time and time again that we wear the welcome mat thin in some of our host communities. We came close to losing IRONMAN Lake Placid. The aforementioned Alaska race was a one-and-done experience. St. George recently said enough was enough.

The line, to me, is clear: we, collectively, need to be better. And that starts by not throwing people who have concern about the impact of our races under the bus.

The post Triathlon’s Attitude Problem is Going to Cost Us Places to Race first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

A pair of Olympic gold medalists led the way at the first of the Supertri Pro Series races at Supertri Austin on the weekend. 2016 Rio champ Gwen Jorgensen pulled clear on the run to take the women’s race, while Tim Hellwig, part of Germany’s Mixed Relay gold medal winning team from Paris, topped the men’s field.

Jorgensen crossed the line with a nice buffer, but there was a close race for second as American Eleanor Beveridge managed to outsprint Slovakia’s Zuzana Michaliková.

Women’s Results:

1. Gwen Jorgensen (USA): 58:14
2. Eleanor Beveridge (USA): 58:33
3. Zuzana Michaliková (SVK): 58:33
4. Joy Gill (USA): 58:37
5. Michelle Magnani (USA): 59:40
6. Annie Fuller (USA): 1:00:13
7. Rylan Lonergan (USA): 1:00:48
8. Faith Dasso (USA): 1:01:22
9. Mackenzie McConagha (USA): 1:01:39
10. Avalyn Thompson (USA): 1:03:17

In the men’s race Hellwig worked with American Olympian Seth Rider on the bike to break clear of the rest of the field, then ran himself to the win. Rider would be passed by France’s Aurelien Jem and countryman Matthew McGoey and would eventually finish fourth.

Men’s Results:

1. Tim Hellwig (GER): 52:00
2. Aurelien Jem (FRA): 52:19
3. Matthew McGoey (USA): 52:28
4. Seth Rider (USA): 52:41
5. Carter Stuhlmacher (USA): 53:03
6. Cole Jamieson (USA): 53:34
7. Nathanael Hamilton (USA): 53:50
8. Elliot Hamilton (USA): 55:05
9. Graham Hummel (USA): 55:48
10. Foster Wilfong (USA): 56:03

Hellwig, Rider and Michaliková already had invites to the Supertri Pro Series Final, so the the men’s qualifiers for the Pro Series Final were Jem, McGoey and Carter Stuhlmacher, while Jorgensen, Beveridge and Joy Gill got the women’s spots.

Beaugrand Breaks French 5,000 m Record

Last week Paris Olympic gold medalist Cassandre Beaugrand broke her third national running record. The reigning triathlon world champion ran 14:40.77 to set the new track record that had stood since 2004 (Margaret Maury – 14:43.90). Last year Beaugrand set the French 5 km road record in Monaco, running 14:53 and ran 30:52 in April of this year to set a new 10 km record on the road, too.

Beaugrand’s run was set up during a club night meet, but still featured three pacemakers (Kenyans Emmaculate Jekopsgei and Purity Chepkirui, plus Burundian Francine Niyomukunzi) and the pacing lights you often see at major track events.

“I really surprised myself,” she told L’Équipe after the race. “I’m not used to running with pacemakers, so I had to adjust my stride. But there were so many people cheering me on. I couldn’t let them down.”

Beaugrand’s time meets the standard for the European Championships in Birmingham in August – it will be interesting to see how much she wants to focus on running as she looks to go after another triathlon world triathlon title this year (she won in 2024), and also begin the qualifying process for the LA Games. Beaugrand is entered in this weekend’s World Triathlon Championship Series Alghero race.

Speaking of Alghero …

Anyone else notice how competitive this race is shaping up to be? The only two women to have won a WTCS race in Sardinia – Beaugrand (in Alghero last year and Cagliari the year before) and Georgia Taylor-Brown (in Cagliari the previous two years) will both be vying for a third title. Beth Potter will no-doubt be keen to add a fourth WTCS win in her last five attempts after taking the Samarkand race, while reigning world champ Lisa Tertsch will look to get back on track to try and defend her title. Others we’ll be watching include Taylor Knibb, Leonie Periault and Jeanne Lehair.

You can see the full women’s start list here.

The men’s race promises to be every bit as much of a barn-burner, with the much-anticipated battle of the world champs – T100 world champ Hayden Wilde and reigning WTCS champ Matt Hauser. Add to that mix Paris Olympic gold medalist Alex Yee, defending Alghero champ Miguel Hidalgo, Samarkand champion Vasco Vilaca and you have the makings of quite the race.

You can see the full men’s start list here.

The post We Noticed: Jorgensen Wins Supertri Austin, Beaugrand Breaks Another French Running Record and more first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

Heading down a perfectly calm but chilly 16C Danube, as expected, it was Hannes Butters from Germany who led out the 1900 m river swim. Butters sat solo about 30 m off the front while the rest of the field remained packed until the turnaround, where groups started to form. A lead chase pack of eight, including Kieran Lindars (GBR), Jannik Schaufler (DEU), Michele Sarzilla (ITA), Valdemar Solok (DEN), and Henry Rӓppo (EST), closed that gap down to mere seconds by the end of the swim.

Solok Dominates the Flat and Fast Bike Course

Heading out on to the flat, fast out-and-back bike course, it was Solok who took the lead, with Rӓppo working hard in second. But Solok pushed the pace and extended his lead to about two minutes by the halfway mark. Rӓppo was joined by Butters and Schaufler to form the first chase pack, but behind them, an incredibly strong group formed that ultimately included Lindars, Harry Palmer (GBR), and Ivan Abele (AUS).

Favourites Fred Funk (DEU) and Will Draper (GBR) worked hard (Draper without a visor or sunglasses, presumably from a malfunction in T1) to catch the pack, their efforts only showing gains in the later stages of the bike.

Solok completed the 90 km bike in 1:52:04, but the more important time was 3:11–the time of his leading gap. Once all the chasers started to come into T2, athletes streamed in constantly, with small but noticeable gaps throughout the field.

Unfortunately, Kurt McDonald (AUS) walked into T2 for a DNF, his rear derailleur and chain hanging over his bottom bracket.

Two Charging Brits Shake Up The Run

Draper came in 3:52 back but made quick work of transition, shaving 20 seconds off his deficit, and was the fastest man on course in the opening kilometers. But Palmer, who came into T2 ahead of Draper with the lead chase pack, was also setting an incredible pace. Although separate on the course, the two made their way through the field at impressive speeds.

The multi-terrain four-lap run course saw athletes running across cement, a sandy horse track, grass, and pavers.

Amid the rising temperatures, Solok maintained his lead for 17 km until Palmer made the definitive pass. But Palmer wasn’t done. He continued to build his lead, looking controlled and comfortable, and went on to break the run course record, take the €15,000 prize, and, with a time of 3:31:55, earn himself the biggest win of his career.

Solok took a well-deserved second, finishing 48 seconds back. Draper, throwing down an equally impressive run to Palmer’s, took the final spot on the podium.

“ I got off the bike in third place and Henry Rӓppo ran up to me, and he was like, “Yeah, we got three minutes to the lead.” I was like, “Well, I feel like he’s kinda gone. I’m racing in second place now.” And then after the first lap, it came down to 2:10. I was like, “I feel like we’ve got a race on our hands here,” so it was just about chipping away,” Palmer said in his post-race interview.

“I like the tough run course, the mixed terrain, it kind of suits me so I just got into a good rhythm. And, yeah, I managed to get past [Solok] on the last lap, and I was bluffing quite a bit when I ran past him. I was not feeling so good, but I just willed myself to the finish line,” he continued. “I love racing the best athletes, and today was epic.”

Men’s Top Three

Harry Palmer (GBR) – 3:31:55
Valdemar Solok (DEN) – 3:32:29
Will Draper (GBR) – 3:33:59

The post Palmer Wins The Challenge Championship–The Biggest Victory of His Career first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

Who could forget the controversial sprint finish last year at the European championships between Lena Meissner and Caroline Pohle? The two would come together again at The Challenge Championship in Samorin, Slovakia as the top seeds and whether it would be a literal or figurative fight for the title was the question on everyone’s mind. 

The two faced a strong field of 24 other qualified women as well as a cold 16C river to start the race. Sophia Green, a British short-course athlete who transitioned to long-course racing, was expected to lead out the swim and did exactly that. The women very quickly strung out into a long line with only Meissner (DEU) and Marta Sanchez (ESP) able to stay on Green’s feet. Pohle (DEU) sat in no man’s land on her own between the leaders and a big chase pack.

Megan McDonald (GBR) led the front chase pack of nine the majority of the 1900 m, with the likes of Lilli Gelmini (ITA), Maela Moison (FRA), Justine Guerard (FRA), and Sofia Aguayo Mauri (ESP) all jostling for position in the final meters. Notably missing from the chase pack was race favourite Elisabetta Curridori (ITA), who swam on her own just behind and hit transition three minutes off the leaders. With several women choosing to wear neoprene caps, it’s possible some, including Curridori, struggled with the cold.

Pohle Takes a Risk on the Bike

On to the bike, Sanchez took the lead early, but Pohle quickly targeted that position. In no time, she made up her 37-second gap from the swim and took the lead. Sanchez, Meissner, and Green stayed with her, but at the halfway point, Pohle attacked. None of the other women seemed to respond until it was too late and Pohle would ride the last 40 km solo off the front, hitting T2 with a 2:39 lead and claiming the bike course record. 

Behind the front four, Katrine Christensen was another woman setting a rocket-fast pace on the bike. Along with Curridori, she bridged up to the front chase pack, joining McDonald, Guerard, Moison, Aguayo, Anastacia Nielsen, Francesca Crestani, and Jasmine Brown. But Christensen continued to push the pace and dropped the group, riding on own between the two chase packs.

Hot Temperatures on the Run

The last time Pohle raced The Championship in 2024, she collapsed from the heat with only 800 m to go. Coming into the race this year, she was vocal about her heat prep, and her concerted effort to make good use of the aid stations was noticeable. The heat started to affect her on the second half of the run but, despite Meissner’s best efforts that brought the gap down to 1:47 from over three minutes, Pohle was untouchable. Pumping her fists and shouting all the way down the red carpet, Pohle took the decisive victory in 3:55:39.

So, no argy-bargy sprint at this race, but Meissner joined her countrywoman again on the podium in second place. With an impressive bike-and-run combination, Christensen overtook a struggling Sanchez to round out the podium. Special mention goes out to Curridori, who put together a fiery run to finish fourth.

“I can’t describe it because I’m so happy and so proud of myself and of my team,” Pohle said after the race. “We [planned] a risk–I did an attack on the bike–so honestly, I didn’t know if it would work, but it worked.”

“ I felt not so good in the first hour of the race. I mean, I struggled on the swim. I came out in third position, so I was so frustrated. So I pushed very hard on the bike and I made my move and it worked,” she continued.

“In 2024, I collapsed 800 m before the finish line, so you don’t know until it’s over. So I pushed really hard until the end. I know Lena is really, really strong, on the run so I give my absolute best. I’m really happy.”

Women’s Top Three:

Caroline Pohle (GER) – 3:55:39

Lena Meissner (GER) – 3:57:11

Katrine Græsbøll Christensen (DEN) – 3:58:32

The post Pohle Wins The Challenge Championship first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

As has been the case for virtually all of her wins over the years, Great Britain’s Lucy Charles-Barclay led from start to finish at IRONMAN Lanzarote today, besting her previous fastest swim time set in 2016 (when she came close to beating Jan Frodeno out of the water) and posting the day’s fastest swim, bike and run times to easily take her third IRONMAN Lanzarote title. The feat now ties her with Paula Newby-Fraser with three wins at this race, renowned as the world’s toughest IRONMAN.

Charles-Barclay hit the beach in 47:01, almost for minutes ahead of countrywoman Stephanie Clutterbuck (who would eventually pull out of the race due to what she reported on social media as burns/ blisters sustained while running through T2), with yet another Brit, Molly Savill just a few seconds back and Switzerland’s Nina Derron hitting T1 almost eight minutes behind in fourth.

Once on the bike it didn’t take Derron long to ride into second, which is where she stayed for almost the rest of the race. Derron would hit T2 a little over 10 minutes behind Charles-Barclay, with yet another British athlete, Rebecca Anderbury a further minute behind. Clutterbuck would get to T2 just over 16 minutes behind Charles-Barclay, while France’s Nikita Paskiewiez would finish the bike 26:38 behind the lead.

Out on the run course Charles-Barclay continued to dominate the day, gaining even more time on the women behind. Derron would remain in second for most of the run, but was passed by Anderbury heading into the third lap before regaining the runner-up spot and staying there through the finish. Anderbury would fade to fourth as a charging Paskiewiez would make up almost two minutes in the final six km of the run to take the final spot on the podium.

I caught up with Charles-Barclay shortly after the race.

Congratulations on the win. Pretty awesome company you just joined.

I mean, when I was running down the finish and you said I’d had surgery in January, I just did get a bit emotional. I was like, yeah, this is actually pretty crazy — to come back from that and be racing the hardest IRONMAN there is, and to get my third win here, really, really special. To be in the company of Paula Newby-Fraser, who is a friend of mine but an absolute legend and hero in the sport — to be up there with her is amazing. And yeah, just really, really happy to get the win, the final Club La Santa IRONMAN Lanzarote. As an ambassador for them, it feels very bittersweet. But yeah, a special day.

Only seven Kona titles to catch Paula’s record now — how hard could it be?

Yeah, I think she might keep that one! But yeah, amazing.

You love getting out front and staying there, but on a course this tough, was it a challenge today?

Yeah, I mean, the day started off really well — to beat my swim course record from, I think it was 2017, where I believe it was a one-lap course then, so it used to be a bit faster. So yeah, to beat that, I was really, really happy. The bike — I’m definitely not at 100% fitness and I felt that, so I kind of had to judge my effort level and make sure I wasn’t pushing too hard, because this is such a tough bike. It’s like an hour longer than most other IRONMANs, so you have to factor that in. And then there was the unknown of running a marathon having had surgery at the end of January — I was like, I probably need to manage this effort a little bit more than I normally would. But, thankfully, when I got on the run I actually felt quite good. It felt like it was flowing. It was definitely a hot one out there, so hopefully a good little test run before Kona. I’m happy I can actually handle the heat again — I kind of got rid of those demons out there today. So yeah, very happy with the overall result.

This was your first full-distance race since Kona. (Charles-Barclay pulled out on the run in the Energy Lab last year.) Was any of that going through your mind as the heat ratcheted up on the run?

Yeah, I think it was a really nice way to get confidence that I can handle the heat. But there’s definitely parts of me after Kona that were like, oh, do I want to do an IRONMAN again? And I decided to go and do the toughest one there is again — and it just reconfirmed that I do want to do this. I loved it, even when it gets really, really tough at the end. I was trying to embrace it, enjoy it, and be grateful that I’m out there, healthy, doing this. So yeah, for the most part I enjoyed it.

You predicted that Reece would be telling you to slow down all day — was that what happened?

Yeah, not in those exact words. He put it in a very good way, actually — he gave me a focus point, just telling me to have a good rhythm. I think he said to run the last half marathon as easy and efficiently as I can. So I took that as slow down! But yeah, basically just get to the finish line in the best state possible, which isn’t always easy on this course. But yeah, happy to report that I’ve made it back in one piece.

Hamburg — are you sending that email to pull out, or have Reece and Dan not paid attention yet?

Yeah, I think my name will be coming off the Hamburg start list. I’m very happy with getting that Kona qualification done and dusted today, and now I can have a little rest before I start training again. It’s definitely been a very rushed period at the beginning of the year trying to get this qualification done, and I hope to now have a period where it doesn’t feel rushed. I can just continue to build that fitness, because it’s definitely not 100% there — it’s lacking in areas. So yeah, it’ll be nice to go and work on that and not feel rushed into the next race.

Will there be another IRONMAN before Kona, or are you building straight to it?

Kona is definitely my A goal for the year, so I think that will be the next IRONMAN that I do. This race has given me a lot of data points — Dan and Reece will look at that and go, okay, this is where you really need to work and improve to be better in Kona, and that’s what we’ll do. If Dan or Reece thinks it’s a good idea to do another Ironman, I’m all for it. But yeah, we’ll just see how it goes.

Everyone seemed to be making statements in Texas — Kristian making his case, Solveig having a big day … now you had a great race here. Do you feel like you’re part of that conversation, reminding people not to forget about you?

I mean, I don’t know if that was much of a statement — it was just me getting around the island and trying to enjoy it as much as possible. Obviously very happy to get the win. And I guess this race is so difficult to compare to any others — it’s really about managing your own effort, getting your nutrition on board. Like I said, it’s basically an hour longer than most other IRONMANs, so it’s a really tough challenge. But if people think it’s a statement, I’m happy to take it! I did get called the Olympic champion when I was running out of T2, and I was like… I don’t think I’m that. But okay, that made me laugh. (Ed. note: I wasn’t on the mic at that point, I promise!)

And finally — 70.3 worlds, still in the picture before Kona?

Yeah, I think so. Obviously I’ll go away and do some good training and see how it goes, but I’d like to defend my title over the 70.3 distance. I feel confident that if we keep building from here, that’s a possibility later in the year for sure.

The post “To get my third win here, really, really special” — Lucy Charles-Barkley on Lanzarote, surgery comeback and the road to Kona first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

He came. He saw. He kicked ass. The last time Sam Laidlow (FRA) started here at IRONMAN Lanzarote (in 2023), he didn’t manage to finish the race. Today he not only finished, he shattered the course record set by his former training partner, Arthur Horseau (8:22:30 in 2023), and bested three-time Kona champion Patrick Lange by almost 10 minutes.

Laidlow led from start to finish, coming out of the water with a 14-second lead over Nik Heldoorn (son of two-time IRONMAN Lanzarote champ Frank Heldoorn), with defending champion Dylan Magnien a minute down. Lange would exit the water 1:07 behind.

Once on the bike Laidlow quickly pulled clear of the rest of the field, setting a new bike course record with his 4:27:52 split to hit T2 over 10 minutes ahead of countryman Damien le Mesnager, over 15 minutes ahed of yet another Frenchman, Leon Chevalier, with Norway’s Jon Breivold and Jordi Montreveda Moya right around 17 minutes down. Sitting in ninth off the bike was Lange, who hit T2 almost 19 minutes behind the leader.

Once out on the run course, though, Lange made quick work of all the men ahead of him, surging through the field and moving into second place before the start of the third lap of the run. (The three loop run course in Lanzarote consists of one long loop followed by two shorter ones.) Even a course record run of 2:33:42 wasn’t nearly enough to put the German even close to Laidlow. Lange was happy to come away with his Kona slot, though, clearing the way for a Roth/ Kona double to finish out the season.

Montreveta Moya was solid through the run to nail third place as le Mesnager would have to settle for fourth.

As the lead announcer at today’s race, I was able to catch up with the champ after his big win.

Sam, a breathtaking race — 8:03 here in Lanzarote, a new bike course record, a new overall record. You must be thrilled with today?

Yeah, I mean, the first thing I said to my dad when I came across the line was that I ran really bad. That’s just the way I am, I guess. But I’m of course very happy. It’s a very, very tough race and very tough conditions, and Patrick thrives in these conditions. So yeah, to be nearly 10 minutes in front is a big win I think, and a lot of confidence going forward to Kona. But yeah, I can’t stress enough how hard that day was. I’ve just been laying here feeling like I’m going to vomit for the last 10 minutes and shivering and yeah… oh man.

We’ve talked a few times over the last year about the illness and the setbacks. It seems like you’ve come back from all of that as a more patient athlete — stronger, and better able to deal with days like today.

Yeah, I mean, from the outside when you have a 10-minute lead or something, it looks like you’re in cruise control and it looks easy to everyone. But yeah, in IRONMAN, anything can happen, you know. I still have these images of people crawling in Kona or stuff like this when I’m two km away from the finish. So it’s really never a done deal, and the last two to three km were really painful for me, even though I had a massive lead. But, yeah, I mean, the setbacks and stuff last year — I think I was just more vocal than most people, but I know for a fact that other athletes also go through setbacks. And yeah, that’s just part of my job, I guess.

On the bike, you were pretty much by yourself the entire race. Was that a challenge, or did that feel good?

I really enjoy being by myself on the bike because I can really focus on the time trialing aspect of it. Focusing on the art of time trialing, I would say, which is to put power out in certain parts of the course and focusing on being aero on other parts. And yeah, I just enjoy it. And today, as I said before the race, it would be a very, very honest race. I don’t think pack dynamics play a big role in tough courses like this. So yeah, I just focused on trying to go as fast as possible while still being efficient, and I think I did a good job. I mean, my power wasn’t super high, but I managed to go really quite fast. So yeah, I’m really happy.

Everyone was talking about the stacked field in Texas and Kristian Blummenfelt’s performance there. Was there any part of you wanting to send your own message today?

If anything, probably not — because I don’t want to get Kristian angry before Roth or Kona, because an angry Kristian is a very fast Kristian. So yeah, I think they’re very, very different races. I think Texas was almost more of a kind of short course draft legal race — even though there is a 20-meter rule, the pack dynamics and a flat course means it’s more of a run race. And here, I think it would be interesting for lots of the guys in Texas to come here. I think it’s completely different. But I think Kona is somewhat a mix of both of them, because the bike in Kona is still pretty hard and pretty hot and windy. For me, I can use this race and now go to Roth and go to Kona and think, thank God I can race for 20 minutes less, or even an hour less, you know, nearly. When I finished two laps here and I saw seven hours 20 or something, I was like, oh, that would be Roth — Roth would be finished now. So yeah, it’s really tough mentally, this race.

And finally, does a performance like this give you any tactical ideas for Kona, or does that go out the window when the field gets so deep?

Yeah, I think it’s difficult now because there’s more and more guys from short course coming up who want to race aggressively, want to race at the front — similar to how I used to be the first time I went to Kona. But now there’s a lot of guys like that. So, if anything, this performance, and even my performances last year in Leeds and Roth, have kind of given me confidence that I can just stick to my numbers and hopefully come through. Now there’s guys that are new to long course, like Jonas (Schomburg) and Marten (Van Reel), who are happy to race aggressively, and I’m happy to let them do that. If I can use them a little bit, then that’s great. But yeah, I think if anything, it’s just given me confidence that I can stick to my numbers and have a solid all-round performance.

The post Sam Laidlow Shatters Records With Huge Win at IRONMAN Lanzarote first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

Twenty top pro women hit a hot and hilly course in Pamplona, Spain, on Saturday as the T100 Triathlon World Tour made its third stop of 2026. Georgia Taylor-Brown took the win in 3:38:03 in this women-only pro race, taking home her first victory on the T100 tour. Switzerland’s Julie Derron finished 1:19 back in second, while American Taylor Spivey rounded things out in third, also recording a milestone as she secured her first-ever T100 podium finish.

Waugh Misses the Race

Reigning T100 world champion Kate Waugh of Great Britain made waves before the race in Spain, but not in the way she would have hoped, as a calf injury forced her to skip the event. That makes two missed T100 events in a row for the the Brit, as she also didn’t race the season opener in Gold Coast, Australia.

A second race with no points for Waugh is a big blow to her hopes of defending her world championship title. In 2025, she raced seven times on the T100 circuit, and there were nine races available to her and the other pro women and men. This year, the series was cut down significantly, and while there are still nine races on the pro calendar overall, four are women-only events, another four solely feature men, and only one — the T100 finale in Qatar — will see both men and women on the start line.

This pared-down schedule required the T100 to adjust the scoring system for the year-end rankings. In 2025, athletes earned points from their five best races on the year, but this season, their ranking will be determined by just four events. With only three races to go for the women in 2026, Waugh will not be able to maximize her points total, which will make it difficult to defend her T100 crown.

Perez Sala’s Early Lead

Back to the women who did race in Spain. It was home-country favourite Sara Perez Sala who led most of the way in the water on Saturday. The swim was a two-lap affair in the Alloz Reservoir, and Perez Sala (who was third at T100 Wollongong last year) took charge at the front of the pack early on. After exiting the water and starting the second lap in first, she carried that lead through to T1.

A long string of women followed Perez Sala out of the reservoir, with Spivey right on her heels just a second back. Great Britain’s Sophie Evans, Taylor-Brown and Holly Lawrence were also in the mix, as well as Derron, the 2025 T100 series runner-up.

All in all, there were 12 women within 24 seconds of one another as they hit transition. After that, everyone else was more than a minute back of the leaders.

Perez Sala was first on her bike, but her lead as she started to ride was quite slim. With so many women so tightly packed in T1, it set up a fun opening few miles of riding as various athletes climbed in and out of the lead.

A Three-Woman Race

While most T100 events feature lapped biked courses for the pros, the race in Spain was a point-to-point ride. The course was winding and hilly, with multiple fast descents that required technical care to navigate sharp turns and corners.

Perez Sala didn’t get to enjoy her time at the front of the race too long after leaving T1, as Taylor-Brown flew into the lead just a couple of miles into the ride. Derron faced a 28-second gap as she started the bike, but she wasted very little time erasing that, and soon enough, she found herself in second place behind Taylor-Brown.

Also in the mix early on was Belgium’s Hanne De Vet, who finished fifth at T100 Wollongong last year. About four miles into the ride, she moved into the lead, passing both Taylor-Brown and Derron, but she faced a potential issue, as the race commentary team noted that she seemed to have lost a bottle at some point in those opening miles. In another T100 race, this wouldn’t have been too much of a problem, as the lapped format gives athletes plenty of opportunities to reload their nutrition. In Spain, however, there were just two aid stations on the bike course, making De Vet’s lost bottle a potentially significant blow.

Over the next 30 miles, there was a lot of shifting within the top five. Germany’s Bianca Bogen rode her way up to second place for a stint, then dropped back. Switzerland’s Imogen Simmonds moved into second for a while, only to fade away. De Vet regained control of the lead, but Derron eventually blew by her once more.

After 20 miles of riding, it looked like Derron was fed up with this yo-yoing. She dropped the hammer and opened up a gap of 14 seconds over second place. There was still plenty of riding to go, but it was conceivable at that time that Derron would ride away with the lead. Six miles later, though, her compatriot Alanis Siffert came charging down the road, flying by Derron to take the lead.

Siffert had started the ride more than two minutes back of the leaders, so she had put in a hard effort to claw her way through the field. The next few miles saw Derron and Siffert exchanging the lead back and forth, and all the while, Taylor-Brown sat just a few seconds back in third, apparently content to let the two Swiss women duke it out up front.

With 16 miles left to ride, it was a three-woman race at the front. Simmonds and De Vet sat in fourth and fifth, but they were both close to two minutes back. Further behind them, Perez Sala and Evans were in sixth and seventh, both north of two and a half minutes off the lead.

The final third of the ride saw very little change at the front. The two Swiss women did manage to put a bit of time into Taylor-Brown in the closing miles before transition, and by the time they racked their bikes, it was Siffert in first and Derron in second nine seconds back. Taylor-Brown hit T2 31 seconds down, but a very slow transition cost her another half a minute, leading her to start the run 59 seconds behind Siffert.

Simmonds was the next athlete to cruise into transition, sitting in fourth 2:17 back of the lead. After having such a tremendous opening half of the race, De Vet faded hard, and she found herself close to five minutes off the lead as she started the run, just ahead of Perez Sala.

Taylor-Brown Wins on the Run

It didn’t take long for Derron to catch Siffert and move into first. After just one kilometer of running, Derron had caught and passed her compatriot, and after a mile, she was 16 seconds clear. Further back, Taylor-Brown had managed to make up time on Siffert, but she still found herself close to a minute behind Derron.

Just over two miles into the 11-mile run course, Derron’s lead had grown to 35 seconds over Siffert. Taylor-Brown was still in third, but only 42 seconds behind Derron as she slowly ate away at the gap. With about nine miles to go, there was still plenty of time for drama to unfold, and less than half a mile later, Taylor-Brown had flipped that gap from 42 seconds to 24.

Another half-mile down the road, Taylor-Brown was suddenly right behind Derron. She made the pass on an uphill section of the course, blowing by her Swiss competitor so quickly that it made Derron look like she was at a standstill. Yet another half-mile later, Taylor-Brown was a whopping 35 seconds clear of Derron. The race was still far from over at that point, but in that moment, it was Taylor-Brown’s to lose.

Just after the halfway mark on the run, Taylor-Brown’s lead was up to 1:45 over Derron, who was still safely running in second place. Siffert was in third at that point, and while she was by no means running slowly, it did look like she was at risk of being caught. Her gap over fourth-place Simmonds was about a minute and a half.

It didn’t appear to be Simmonds who was the biggest threat to steal a spot on the podium, however, but instead Spivey, who was flying through the field. After getting off her bike in 10th, Spivey had jumped five places in the opening half of the run. She was well back of Taylor-Brown (more than five minutes off the lead), but a first-ever T100 podium looked to be well within her reach as she charged along the course.

With six and a half miles down on the run, Spivey passed Simmonds to move into fourth, and it looked inevitable that she would catch Siffert. Two miles down the road, that moment came, and Spivey jetted by Siffert to move into podium position.

Further back, the next threat to pass Siffert was no longer Simmonds, who had faded to seventh. A pair of Brits, Lawrence and Lizzie Rayner, had passed Simmonds, and with under three miles to go, they were running side by side, sharing fifth place.

With two miles left to run, Taylor-Brown’s lead was around two minutes. Derron had made up a few seconds in the previous mile or two, but nothing substantial enough to threaten the leader. It was the same with Spivey back in third. She was running much quicker than Derron, but since she was still two minutes behind the Swiss athlete, she was bound to run out of real estate before she could take any real shot at stealing second place.

While the podium was set by then, the battle for the top five was shaping up to be very exciting. Despite having looked to be labouring earlier in the run, Lawrence had moved into fifth all on her own after gapping Rayner by 15 seconds. With two miles left, she was 35 seconds behind Siffert. Half a mile later, the gap was down to 19 seconds. At that point, Lawrence was running the fastest out of the top-five women, and she had even managed to pull to back within a minute of Spivey.

By the time the women hit the line, it was Taylor-Brown in first in 3:38:03. Derron ate into the gap considerably in the final miles of the run, crossing the line in 3:39:23. Spivey had the best middle-distance race of her career to date, finishing in third in 3:41:29.

Just off the podium was Lawrence, who used a 1:10:46 run split to fly into fourth place. Siffert was just under 20 seconds back, completing a stellar race for her best T100 result yet (her previous highest finish was 10th).

Here is how the top 10 shook out:

The post Georgia Taylor-Brown Charges to First T100 Victory in Spain first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

If you were at the IRONMAN Texas press conference in The Woodlands last month, the last thing you would have thought was that Patrick Lange was injured. The three-time Kona champ was in great spirits, adorned in a Texas Tech shirt and cracking jokes and, in what has become standard operating procedure at press conferences, asking some of his own questions of the other athletes in the panel.

A few days later, though, Lange would struggle right from the start of the race, exiting the water well back and eventually dropping out. Which is why we get to see him racing this weekend here in Lanzarote – a race that’s taken him “too long” to get to, he pointed out during yesterday’s press conference.

Lange is 39 and admits that he’s in the latter part of his career, but remains one of the most feared runners in the sport. While his resume is stacked with big wins – those three Kona titles, three IRONMAN North American wins (two in Texas and one in Tulsa) along with the Roth title in 2021 – he’s also struggled at times with the pressure of being a world champion, especially being a Kona champion from Germany, a country that worships it’s long-distance triathlon stars.

Lange, though, worked through those challenges and bounced back after a tough 2019 year to set the stage for his third Kona title, not to mention a runner-up finish in Nice the year before. I caught up with Lange after yesterday’s press conference to chat about the race here in Lanzarote, and that mindset change that has elevated him to one of the most successful IRONMAN athletes in history.

Q: Patrick, great to hear the back is feeling better after Texas. You just looked uncomfortable coming out of the water — I said to the person next to me, “Something’s wrong with Patrick.”

Yeah, definitely. It was such a good build-up, but the last five days it just spiraled downward. Normally it spirals upwards towards the race, but somehow this week it went the other way. It’s good to have recovered from that. The lower back has always been my weak spot, because my left leg is one and a half centimetres longer than my right — I broke my leg bone when I was a baby. So it’s always been that weak spot, but now it’s actually pretty good. I didn’t feel it for the last couple of days, so I’m really looking forward to this race. The main goal is to qualify for Kona here, get the slot, and then focus on Roth and Kona obviously.

Q: The great news for all of us is we get to see you race on one of the legendary courses. How challenging was it to make that switch mentally after what happened?

Definitely challenging, because you’re coming off a very bad race, a bad experience, and of course you’re questioning yourself — what went wrong. It was interesting for me to experience that it almost felt like I’d finished the race. From the muscle pain and the mental fatigue, I was so drained, and energy-wise, when I started swimming again, every muscle in my body was aching. A race always takes something out of you, even if you don’t finish it. To switch off and focus again — for the first two weeks it was very hard to get into a rhythm. But it helped once I finally made the decision: okay, I’ll go to Lanzarote. Once I had that box ticked in my head, training got better every day. From the moment we said as a team, “I want to do this race” — it’s a big opportunity to get the Kona slot, and a big opportunity to race a very cool course that should suit me — it was uphill from there. Now I feel good and I think it’s a great opportunity to go out there and fight for the slots.

Q: I feel like you’re so much better now at absorbing those kinds of setbacks than in the pressure cooker of 2017, 2018, when you were world champion and carrying all of that. There seemed to be a mental switch somewhere — I could see it in 2023, when you were second in Nice and then won in Kona. Am I on the right track?

Yes, of course. I think it was end of 2021 — I decided to make a change because I was not happy with my mental state. The mind needs to be trained just as much as the body. When I decided to work on that, I got a different connection to the sport again, put things into perspective a little better, and it helped me enjoy it more and just be more myself. I also made some changes in the team, which helped a lot. It made me fall in love with the sport all over again, and I think that was a key moment — making that change and working on the mental side as well.

The post From Pressure Cooker to Perspective: Patrick Lange on the Change That Saved His Career first appeared on Slowtwitch News.