Less than 12 months after hosting the ITU World Duathlon Championships, Northern Spain will once again be hosting international run-bike-run action in Soria.
The first European Championship event of the 2017 season will take place on Saturday and Sunday with the Soria ETU Duathlon European Championships. The Great Britain team heads to Spain with strong hopes across all categories at the event.
The pre-race favourite for Gold in the Junior event, will surely be Alex Yee. Blessed with incredible running speed, Alex was a dominant winner of the ITU World Junior Championships in Aviles last year, and will be hoping to add the European title to his C.V. Alex will be joined in the Elite Junior race by Cameron Richardson, an age-group medallist last year at that same World Championship. Cameron recently won the British Junior Championships in impressive style.
The Elite men will have hopes of success in the senior race too. Mark Buckingham recently returned from injury to take the Silver medal at the British Elite Championships. He won Bronze at the ITU World Duathlon Championships in Adelaide, Australia two years ago. The Gold and Silver wiiners that day, Emilio Martin (ESP) and Benoit Nicolas (FRA), will also be racing again on Saturday.
Above: All three podium athletes from the 2015 ITU Duathlon World Championships will be back in action this weekend
Another Brit in good form is Richard Horton. Food poising meant that he wasn’t able to show that at the recent British Elite Championships, but the former World Junior and Under-23 Champion has the ability to challenge the best, having set several impressive personal best running times during the early season.
As always, a large British Age-Group team will be travelling to Spain with many hoping to defend championships won last year at European and/or World Championship level. At the 2016 ETU European Championships in Kalkar, Germany, the Great Britain Age-Group team returned with 18 medals (Standard) and a massive 44 medals (Sprint), which included a total of 23 Gold. A large entry from the host nation, Spain, will make matching those figures a very tough task.
British Elite athletes at the Soria ETU Duathlon European Championship
Senior
Mark Buckingham
Richard Horton
Danny Russell
Philip Wylie
U23
Richard Allen
Junior
Alex Yee
Cameron Richardson
Caitlin Roper
ParaDuathlon
Richard McLeod (PTS4)
Full Start lists: http://www.triathlon.org/events/start_list/2017_soria_etu_duathlon_european_championships/307183
Race Website: http://www.duatlonsoria.com
