It’s been billed as one of the most exciting showdown’s of the European Triathlon season as two of the greatest triathlon Champions in the World compete together in the ETU Challenge Barcelona Middles Distance Triathlon European Championships on Sunday.
Chris McCormack, an ITU World Champion, ITU Long Distance World Champion and Ironman Champion, takes on Javier Gomez, Double ITU World Champion and three times ETU European Champion for the first time. This is Gomez’s debut at Middle Distance Triathlon.
All eyes will naturally be on Javier Gomez and Chris McCormack as they go head to head but there are several other top triathletes also involved in the Men’s event, including Danish Olympian Jens Toft, winner of the Half Challenge Fuerteventura, Italy’s Massimo Cigana and Russia’s Pavel Andreev, who is practically invincible in winter triathlons.
The Women’s starting line-up features Camilla Pedersen, the runner-up in the ITU Long Distance World Championships in Vitoria-Gasteiz last year and the defending champion of the Half Challenge Barcelona, Italy’s Martina Dogana. Germany’s Olympian Ricarda Lisk will also make her middle distance debut.
For the 2013 edition, the triathletes will be enjoying a brand new cycling segment, a spectacular circuit that takes in two natural parks and is perfectly adapted to Middle Distance racing.
Over 2,000 entrants have registered for the ETU Challenge Barcelona with Age Group categories split into two waves for the Men.
Six Para-triathletes are registered across categories TRI-4, TRI-5 and TRI-6. Amongst them, only Joaquin Carrasco (TRI-4) has won a European title before so there will be some new names on the podium.
The entire ETU Challenge Barcelona event will be streamed live at www.challenge-barcelona.es. The program starts at 0645 (local time) with the Elite Men starting the competition at 0700.
