German university championship title in triathlon goes to Kassel

Especially the competition on Saturday promised to be exciting and fast-paced, as a real bike race could develop due to the slipstream release on the bike. Each of the three team members had to complete a Super Sprint Triathlon in succession. Accordingly, it was mainly a matter of a fast swim to catch a good bike group at the beginning. While Leon von Zeppelin as the first starter of the relay team was able to keep up with the leaders in the water, he fell back slightly on the bike. However, a final fighting run brought a placing just above the top 10 to the first starter change. So after Leon passed the virtual baton to Lena, she managed to hold her own against the strong competition of the Bundesliga-experienced starters and roughly held her place. As the last member of the team, Christoph then tried to get his team as far ahead as possible by racing aggressively. In doing so, he managed to jump into the top 5 in the team competition with the fastest intermediate time of the day.

Visibly marked by the exertions of the previous day, the task on Sunday was to cut a good figure in the individual competition. Jonas Nikolaus, who had not started the day before, conjured up a strong swim time in the water and, building on this, tried not to lose too many places on the bike and in the run. While the other starters were on their last lanes in the water, Christoph was already on his way to the mission German University Champion 2019! After setting the fastest time of the day in the water, he tried to break away a bit on the bike and already there show the competition that it will be very hard for them today. Due to the hard wind conditions a solo ride became an ordeal, so that a chasing group could catch him at KM10. Lena played exactly these hard conditions thereby as strong cyclist however optimally into the cards. While Christoph was able to consolidate his position in the leading group and everything looked like a running duel, Leon and Jonas were fighting for important positions a little further back in the field. After a fast transition Christoph was the first to leave the transition area and was able to control the race on the first two of the three running laps. Leon also showed a good performance and fought his way up to 28th place overall. Lena especially fought her way through once again at the end and finished just above the women's top 10. Meanwhile, the battle for the title had already been decided. At the beginning of the last run lap, Christoph pulled away from the two remaining competitors on the mountain with a short sprint and ran towards the finish line with the fastest running time of the day. While he won bronze last year, this year he secured the title "German University Champion" for the first time.

At this point we would also like to thank the organizing Ostafalia University as well as the ADH Germany for a successful and well organized event!

Results in short:

Christoph Bentz 1st place
Leon von Zeppelin 28th place
Jonas Nikolaus 43rd place
Lena Bischoff-Stein 12th place
Mixed Team Relay (Leon, Lena, Christoph) 5th place

Dr. Tobias Heyer