It's the second year in a row that the Dutch RBR competition has a race hosted in Flanders. At the Lissenpool at Geel it were the Dutch athletes who dominated the race in this Holland-Belgium duathlon. The female favorites, Lesley Smit, Sophie Van Der Most and Jony Heerink, lived up to the expectations. Both male and female races were tense until the very end, one race ended in an ex aequo in the team ranking, the other with a mere 2 points difference. Lets start with the female race...
Smit, Van Der Most and Heerink showcased their class. After a fast first 2,5km run they attacked as a trio. Sophie was in the most comfortable position, in the chasing pack her teammates Marije Pieterse and Floor Van de Brand controlled everything. In the final lap of the 20km bike both packs eventually merged, leaving 6 women to battle it out on the last 5km run. It was tactical, calculated and fast. Lesley Smit took the lead but was constantly followed by Jony Heerink.
"I Had to give it all during the run," says Smit. "I knew that Jony, Sophie and I were the fastest runners, but that the three of us are on the same level. Jony kept following my every move, so I couldn't drop the pace for one second. I'm very pleased to have won this fast race," says Lesley. She took the win in 1hr02'15, Jony Heerink came second and Sophie Van Der Most third, her two teammates were fourth and fifth. Unfortunately for the Maastricht based team Deborah Wissink, Lesley's teammate came sixth, leaving both teams with seven points to win the race.
Armand Van der Smissen, organizer of the RBR series took out the race regulations to find out what had to be done in case of ex aequo. There is no mention of a tie-breaker, leaving both teams to win in this event of the RBR. Third place in the team ranking went to Hellas Utrecht, with Belgian duathlete Kim Nulens. She came eighth. "The first run was that bit too fast for me, so I put all my bets on the bike. I never managed to close the gap and there was no sign of cooperation in our group. I had to give it all during the second run, leaving me on eighth," says Kim.
Original article posted on 3athlon.be by Hans Cleemput on 08/04/2018
Translation by @T0v3