That’s a surprise: Konstantin Bachor is dominating the race after the first two disciplines of Challenge Roth. Can an underdog win the Official ETU Long Distance Triathlon European Championships? The police officer from Wolfsburg pushed hard on the bike and left the favorite athletes more than eight minutes behind. The young man already came out of the water with the top athletes and took the pole position shortly afterwards. The question is now if he can defend his lead all the way to the finish line. Behind him, top stars Timo Bracht, Cameron Brown, James Cunnama, Stephen Bayliss and Mike Aigroz chased him together.

An interesting tidbit for the local fans: Dorian Wagner from Allersberg is racing in the second group of pursuers and still has a chance at a spot among the top ten.

The women’s race develops just as expected. The current long distance triathlon World Champion Rachel Joyce leads and is about four and a half minutes ahead of the surprisingly strong Dutch Mirjam Weerd. The two German poster children Sonja Tajsich and Julia Gajer follow with some distance. Especially last year’s second placed Gajer dropped back a bit on the bike.

So how’s it looking beside the course? Fantastic! At the swim start were about 25,000 spectators, the Solar Hill was nearly closed due to spectator overflow and all the other, smaller hot spots are buzzing with cheering fans as well.