Challenge Samarkand in Uzbekistan takes place on September the 8th (Sunday) and I spoiled the top of the MPRO start list in the subject line of this post. It’s:
Short but meaty! (That’s what she said).
Notable WPRO names include PTO ranked #44 Laura Madsen, Marta Lagownik and Nicole van der Kaay who will be making her long course debut.
Picks?
Blu
Bogen
Iden
No idea on the ladies
It’s 39 Celcius (102 F) in Samarkand - so I’m “downgrading” Bogen:
and
Rico Bogen? Pretty sure it’s Nico Bergen
I saw some pictures of this race from last year and was a little intrigued. All of the shots look like the place is empty. How much to get Gustav, Kristian and Rico to go there?
Anyway, I’d love an excuse to go to some places like this. If they are throwing enough money at the pros to get them to turn up, I’m surprised they haven’t just hit up Ironman to host a 70.3 Worlds race.
Blummenfelt
Bendix Madsen
Bogen
Iden
Bishop
Some friends of mine did go to 70.3 Astana, when it was still on, for the exotic aspect (Kazakhstan being easier to reach for us Europeans, as well). As a small trivium, the name of this capital city was changed to Nursultan in 2019 and then back to Astana in 2022.
Race is being streamed here:
Feel like Gustav is getting closer to being back. Small field but beating Bogen, Madsen, and Hug, has to be seen as a positive. Idk how hard the front 5 made it. They all seem to have swam and biked together. Looks like Blu might’ve pulled away a little at the end of the bike.
Madsen with another strong bike leg in the women’s race (of 4).
You are reading tea leaves from splits, and you guessed wrong. Bogen pulled away on the bike and put about a minute into the group. Blu ran very hard to catch at about halfway, Iden just ran a sensible pace and worked his way up. It was a great outing for him, beating some really good guys and not that far behind Blu at the finish…
Meant to say Bogen/not Blu purely from bike splits. Idk how it went I didn’t have any way to watch. Always with the tone just say what you need to say, made a mistake typing fast. It happens
I think it was Pro Tri News that posted a link, but the YouTube coverage was actually pretty darn good with the use of drones. It was on mute so I couldn’t hear anything though.
Anybody knows why Tom Bishop was a DNS? He took the KOM of the lake lap at 50 km/h some days before, posted he was racing and nothing else.
