European Championship at the Kober – optimal and suboptimal

This year, this competition really has to be given both of the above headline designations. In any case, suboptimal was the fact that we had to forego swimming due to restrictions imposed by the dam administration and that we – and the organiser – had to deal with declining numbers of participants. Unfortunately, this is a consistent development in this year of the first openings after Corona.
Optimal was the weather and the completely convincing and professional organisation of this competition. Many thanks to Ronny Enke, his whole team and also the newly won main sponsor GAZ Notstromsysteme GmbH as well as the SV Sachsen 90 Werdau e.V..

The early start at 9:45 a.m. ensured pleasant temperatures for all participants during the competition. In addition, there was a mild breeze … very pleasant. Laurent Martinou was able to pull away from the start during the first 5 km run, always closely followed by Ferenc Csima and Nick Verduyckt, the young Belgian who made his Quadrathlon debut here. Nick also achieved the best time on the bike, but Laurent also stayed in the leading group, which was completed by Leoš Roušavý and William Peters. So the Belgians were the second most represented nation.

The absolute top performers in the kayak, however, were Ferenc and Nick, who made life difficult for Laurent with their paddling performance and again demanded everything from Laurent in the running. Despite his break from competition, Laurent was definitely the running king of the day. Nevertheless, this year there is no way around Ferenc, who took the day’s victory ahead of Laurent by a clear margin. Rather tragically, young Nick managed an excellent third place, but injured himself so badly at the finish that he had to be admitted to hospital.

Best German on this day was Tomas Kälble behind Leoš and William. In the women’s race Susanne Walter really doesn’t let anything go to waste this year and won here sovereignly ahead of Undine Weihe and Andrea Kuhlmey.