On Saturday, Lāsma Ozola significantly improved the Latvian record in the long distance at the Ironman competition in Tallinn, informs the Latvian Triathlon Federation (LTF).
The Ironman brand entered Estonia in 2016 and this year it was planned to hold two competitions – both the full distance in September in Tallinn and the average distance in Otepää in June, known as the Ironman 70.3 brand. However, the situation in the world forced both competitions to be held on the same day.
Until now, Latvian representatives had participated in the full Ironman only ten times, but this time the list was supplemented by two at a time, and Ozola corrected the national record by two hours. The oak distance was completed in ten hours, 14 minutes and 37 seconds, giving him second place in his age group.
The data of the portal “Lsm.lv” show that so far the state record belonged to Ieva Tīruma-Skagina, who lives in the USA, who in 2018 performed “Ironman” in 12 hours and five minutes. Last year in Tallinn alone, Antra Roga was less than two minutes behind the record, but on Saturday Ozola was significantly faster.
In July, she also broke the Latvian record in the Ironman 70.3 distance in Smiltene, which is now four hours, 54 minutes and nine seconds. Jana Gutkina, who was faster than 13 hours, also took part in the long distance from Latvian ladies.
In the men’s full distance, where you have to run 3.8 kilometers first, then 180 kilometers by bicycle and finally run a marathon, Rinalds Sluckis won the fourth place in the overall standings, finishing after eight hours, 39 minutes and 36 seconds. This gave it a third position in its age group.
The winner of the competition was less than 12 minutes faster. Last year, Sluckis triumphed very convincingly in Otepää in the Ironman 70.3 competition. Vadim Popov was also in the top forty, but in total 667 athletes were included in the result.
Latvia had a very wide representation in the “Ironman 70.3” competition, where 70.3 shows the total distance covered in miles. Here, among the Latvian athletes, Andis Grandāns finished first, to whom the result 4.21: 22 gave him the 31st place in the overall classification and the fifth in his age group. In the internal struggle of Latvia, he was 13 and a half minutes ahead of Artūrs Lozis, but Mārtiņš Marnauza was six minutes behind.
It is significant that for ladies the number of Latvian participants was smaller than in the long distance – the only local representative Antra Roga with the result 5.43: 49 won the third place in her age group. Meanwhile, Aivars Uzols and Raimonds Garenčiks won in age groups.
The information of the organizers showed that 93 Latvian athletes had applied for the matches.
In June, for the second time in Latvia, medium-distance competitions, known in the world under the brand “Ironman 70.3”, were held in Smiltene. Seeing the response of the participants to the start in Smiltene and the even wider activity in Estonia, the Latvian Triathlon Federation has set a goal to hold the Latvian championship in the middle distance next year, but within five years the Ironman brand could enter Latvia.
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