Only two Belgian teams faced the Dutch competition during the second race of the RBR series at Geel. It turned out to be an exciting sprint duathlon with a lead role for the home team. Glen Laurens provided the only Belgian podium, but had to bow before Wesley Mols and Dennis Licht. The team event was also tense, leaving victory with only two points.
The men started off with a 2,5km run, followed by a technical 20km bike leg. We had Daan De Groot in mind to perform on this course, having won the Belgian season opener in Geluwe earlier. "The conditions are not to be compared, plus the other race was on cobbles. It will turn out a very different race, with fast bike splits, so I don't think a win is an option, but we'll try our best," said Daan prior to the start. Immediately after the start he went all in, along with Robert de Korte and Thomas Cremers, they took a nice lead on the pack with favorites.
The pack managed to cooperate and to contain the gap to a few seconds at the entry of T2. The last 5km run would be decisive. The run was lead by 4 Trican athletes, claiming the win in the ranking, only until Wesley Mols overtook them all and took the lead with Dennis Licht and Glen Laurens. These three would battle it out for the ultimate win, but behind them shifts in positions would change the outcome of the team ranking. Mols won in 55'02, 15 seconds later Dennis Licht finished, Glen Laurens came third in 55'24.
At the finish tension rose as there was some calculus to be done to determine the victors. They had to go back to the 16th place to get a decisive result, Trican won with 25 points, 2 less than Hellas Utrecht. The hometeam CDTG Geel feel just short of the podium.
Strong para-duathlete Jan Willem
In the recreational duathlon earlier that day Bart Nietvelt took the win after a solo on the bike. Bart Verkaemer was the fastest chaser and ended second, just ahead of Jeffrey Herrebaut. Lotte Claes was superior in the female race. Jolien Boonen came surprisingly third after having lost a lot of time on the bike, she was passed by Kaat Van Eynde and did not manage to close the gap. Para-duathlete Jan Willem came 49th overall in a 1hr19'44 time.
Original article posted on 3athlon.be by Hans Cleemput on 08/04/2018
Translation by @T0v3