Bahrain Victorious 13 athletes Cassandre Beaugrand and Jelle Geens kicked off their season with unrivalled wins in France and Australia.
Olympic and world champion Beaugrand was a class apart at the T1 Indoor Triathlon World Cup Lievin. Held over a 200-metre swim, 2.8 kilometre cycle, and 1 kilometre run at an indoor running track with a 25-metre temporary pool built in the middle, athletes competed in heats and repechages for the top finishers to qualify into the semi-finals and onto the finals. The Frenchwoman breezed through her heat and semi-final, then stamped her dominance in the final to finish with enough time to take a bow before breaking the tape.
Racing Down Under at Ironman 70.3 Geelong, reigning Ironman 70.3 world champion Geens overhauled a 9th-placed 1.9-kilometre swim finish by blazing into second on the 90-kilometre bike. He then led the half marathon from start to finish with the day’s fastest run to claim the victory.
He said, “It’s good to start the season with a win; it was a hard-fought win for sure. I wasn’t 100 percent sure how I was going to feel because I got sick a couple of weeks ago and then my partner got sick and it was very busy with the baby, but luckily we had a lot of help from her family. In the end I actually felt really good, but I needed it today because the guys were on fire.”
Along with Lauren Parker’s win a week ago at the World Triathlon Para Series Devonport where she outsplit the PTWC male competitors with a time of 1:08:45, these performances have marked a monster month of March for the unstoppable Bahrain Victorious 13.
This coming weekend, Vasco Vilaca lines up at the European Triathlon Cup Quarteira, hoping to improve on his bronze finish at the World Triathlon Championship Series race in Abu Dhabi back in February.
