Anna Zagórska is the new top athlete in quadrathlon

As usual participants confronted extremely hot conditions in this year’s long distance World Championship in Gyékényes/Nagyatád Hungary. The starting field was rather small, but the top athletes were at the start line to decide not only the championship places but the final World Cup positions as well.
The “boiling” already started in the 2,7 km swimming part in the crystal clear but rather hot – 26 degree water. The start was at 7.30 together with the traditional Ironman so 200 athletes jump into the water at the same time. After some mass incidences in the first hundred meters everybody found his place in the water, quadrathletes mainly in the front groups. The first group (Laurent Martinou-FRA, Ferenc Csima-HUN, Anna Zágorska-POL and Leoš Roušavý-CZE) was come out from the water after 41 minutes and started the 20 km kayak part. Temperature already reached 30 degrees at the kayak start and reached 35 degrees at the finish. Here Zágorska in the women’s race and Csima in the men’s race worked out a big gap against the pursuers. Rousavy overtook Martinou with some minutes. The 62 km bike track was rather flat with only some small “mountains”. Here also the heat was the biggest challenge, but everybody managed to keep his speed. The leaders kept their positions, Martinou overtook Rousavy just before finishing the bike part. The biggest challenge of the day came on the running course. Temperatures reached 40 degrees which influenced the performance of all athletes although there were refreshment stations at every km. Zágorska and Csima managed to keep a stable tempo on the 21 km, but first Rousavy later Martinou suffered heavily from the heat and were loosing tempo.

It deserves special attention to the performance of Anna Zagórska who put a remarkable result in all disciplines despite the unfavourable conditions and despite it was only her 3rd quadrathlon race. She was able to overtake the 2 men top athletes Martinou and Rousavy. With this result she is most probably the strongest women quadrathlete of all times.