- Denmark kicked off Europe’s first 2021 IRONMAN 70.3 event under Safe Return to Racing protocols.
- Along with a strong PRO field, 1500 athletes attended the 2021 IRONMAN 70.3 European Championship Elsinore.
Cloudy race conditions made the 2021 IRONMAN 70.3 European Championship Elsinore a special one for Lucy Charles-Barclay (United Kingdom) and George Goodwin (United Kingdom), crossing the finish line in the fastest time in the men’s and women’s races respectively. Athletes started off the swim in calm conditions with the water temperature reaching 18.6 degrees Celsius, and the air temperature at 17.8 degrees Celsius at the start of the race and rising to 21 degrees Celsius midday in Elsinore, Denmark.
Lucy Charles-Barclay won the Women’s PRO category in style, setting a new course record with a time of 03:59:57. With the race defending champion, Holly Lawrence (United Kingdom), crossing the finish line in second, and Camilla Pedersen (Denmark) rounding off the podium in third place.
Lucy Charles-Barclay shares her thoughts on the race, “It feels nice to win something and not be second. I just went hard from the start. Obviously, the swim is my strength, so I knew I had to get as much of a gap there as possible. On the bike I was just riding hard and just trying to push hard the whole way and chase the men in front of me, and bike as if there was not even a run going to happen. On the run I was trying to build up each lap and I was feeling pretty strong in the end.”
George Goodwin too produced a great performance winning the Men’s PRO category in 03:38:58. On the podium with George Goodwin, the defending European Champion from 2018 and 2019 Rodolphe von Berg (United States) came in second and Jan Stratmann (Germany) rounding off the podium in third.
George Goodwin’s expressed his excitement of being an IRONMAN 70.3 European Championship winner, “It sounds good! [being called a champion] My swim was slow, the bike and run were definitely better. My goals was to pick everyone up on the run. I didn’t know if I was going to run that fast but I knew if I ran as well as I could I would move up.”
The top three MPRO and WPRO have qualified for 2021 IRONMAN World Championship, St. George Utah in September. And alongside the strong professional field, nearly to 1500 age-group athletes raced through the city of Elsinore with the immense support from the local community cheering them on.