Will Draper (GBR) took his second Challenge title of the season at Challenge Samarkand today while Sara Perez Sala (ESP) led from the gun to take a convincing win over her nearest rivals.
From the gun, Max Stapley (GBR) and Henri Schoeman (RSA) took an early lead in the swim. Both strong swimmers, the pair had a game plan from beginning, to put as much distance between them and the rest of the field in the swim. Schoeman exited the water first in 23:27 with Stapley a second behind. Ognjen Stojanović (SRB) was out in third 1:18 down. Out onto the bike and the pair continued to put time into the rest of field, riding within the Challenge Family 20m drafting rules. However, Stapley wasn’t hanging around and after the first 10km he started to pull away and dominated the bike from that point on, rarely dropping below 50kph. But behind him, Draper was riding up the field, having exited the water in sixth 3:46 down, along with Bogdan Kovalenko (KAZ). Draper arrived at T2 48 seconds down on Stapley and with the fastest bike split of the day in 1:52:14, with Schoeman and Kovalenko in third and fourth, over four minutes later. The run was hot and brutal with no shade as the athlete completed four laps of the rowing lake. Draper had Stapley in his sights and the pass was made at 13km with Stapley unable to respond. Draper took the win in 3:40:42, with Stapley crossing the line in second in 3:41:35. Stojanović rounded out the podium with the fastest 1:14:46 run split of the day in 3:43:54.
“It’s been an incredible season, I’m riding a high and everything is moving in the right direction,” said Draper at the finish line. “It was a really tough day out there but I knew the dynamic of this race would be that you’d have to do a lot of the work on your own. I rode the start of the bike hard and Max kept a gap. I actually thought if I don’t catch at the end of the bike that’s a good sign as there’s more chance there’ll be a drop of pace on the run. It was really nice to swim close to the hotel and ride such a fantastic route. They really pushed the boat out and gave us a really good bike course. The run is brutal but it’s around the venue and well supported by the locals.”
In the women’s race Perez Sala dominated from start to finish. There were no surprises when she exited the water first in 25:22, 1:11 ahead of Britain’s Chloe Sparrow. On the bike Perez Sala proved to be uncatchable, and Sparrow was always the only one ever in contention with both riding solo for the entire 90km. Behind them there was a lot of jostling for position with Amelia Watkinson (NZL), Anna Bergsten (SWE) and Milan Agnew (AUS) riding up the field. However, the pace proved too much for Agnew and Watkinson and Bergsten rode together for the final half of the bike. Unfortunately for both Agnew and Sparrow, their races ended as DNFs. Out onto the run and Perez Sala had a comfortable 6:42 lead, but Watkinson was running considerably faster and by the time they crossed the finish line, there was just 1:28 between them. Perez Sala took the win in 4:05:34, Watkinson in second in 4:07:12 and Bergsten took third in 4:10:38.
“I’m very happy because this is an amazing place, the organisation is fantastic. I enjoyed it a lot,” said Perez Sala. “The swim course is beautiful, the bike is flat and really fast but is very tough because of the wind. The run course is flat also but I suffered a lot – I’m happy to win. On the second lap of the run I heard six minutes, and I knew I needed to run with my head but the last lap I pushed everything for the win.”
For full results, visit https://my.raceresult.com/356205/.
For further information, visit www.challenge-samarkand.com.
