Africa Triathlon

Thanks to his improved swim performance, Ralf Arnold posted the fastest paratriathlon time of 2:15:55 at the Dextro Energy Triathlon - World Championship Series in Hamburg. Arnold, who competes in the TRI6 Paratriathlon category - “Visually impaired” is from Mannheim. Thomas Frühwirth from Graz led the field of eleven paratriathletes out of the water. Frühwirth is a TRI1 (wheelchair paratriathlete). Arnold however, posted the fastest bike split of 59:50 with his guide Martin Schmidtke to overtake Frühwirth on the bike. Frühwirth narrowed the gap on the run but settled for the second overall paratriathlon place, just one minute behind Arnold with a time of 2:16:56. Frühwirth just missed his expected finish time of 2 hours 15 minutes, given in his prerace interview. With his fantastic swim time (exactly 25:00), Frühwirth broke the previous Hamburg paratriathlon record of Etienne Caprin (FRA) by 55 seconds.

Just two minutes off the leaders pace followed Oliver Dreier (AUT) in the TRI 4 category “Arm impairment”. Dreier has drawn some attention following his 9:56 finish time at IronMan Roth. Dreier led the field off the bike but was passed by Arnold and Frühwirth on the run, but he still finished with an amazing finish time of was 2:17:58. The next paratriathlon finisher at 2:26:58 was Stefan Hüppe (TRI 4).  Hüppe improved his last year’s time by 6 minutes, but this was not enough against Drier, his younger challenger. Defending world champion in TRI 3 “Les Autres” Sebastian Averesch improved his performance by 10 minutes, to finish in 2:40:01. Averesch was followed by Gerhard Hartwich (TRI 5), Olaf Kohn (TRI4), Christoff John (TRI3), Florian Szawlowski (TRI4)  and Sven Niebergal (TRI3) across the finish line. The lone female paratriathlete was local Julia Harder (TRI 4). Harder completed her first Olympic distance triathlon with a time of 4:02:17.

The next race of the paratriathon race circuit is the London Dextro Energy World Championship Series Triathlon. 43 paratriathletes are set to compete in the Hyde Park event.

If you have any additional question about ITU Paratriathlon please contact Thanos Nikopoulos.