It was a long road to breaking through and winning bronze at the 2022 Championship Finals in Abu Dhabi, but Germany’s Lena Meisner proved herself once again on Saturday in the brutal heat of Samarkand, reaching her first World Cup podium.
She swam at high speed with Therese Feuersinger, Zuzana Mihalikova and Jessica Fluger, and the foursome cycled away before they were reduced to three. Meisner and Flager then ran the better part of 10 kilometers together, with Sweden’s Tilda Munsson driving her home. She finished on the podium with the fastest time by more than two minutes.
“Therese swam with such force that it was quite difficult for her to stay on her feet,” Meissner admitted. “I think we had a gap on the bike and pretty much ran as hard as we could for 40km. Then during the run we just kept picking up the pace and trying to get on the podium if possible, so I started thinking we could win. The three of us I was motivated to work really hard there and Jess and I switched turns to deal with the wind and on the last lap we were all on our own!”
Feusinger’s flow
The start on the Silk Road rowing lake was a two lap 1500m swim, with no out and back in at the halfway point, Feusinger picked up the pace again and Meissner successfully caught up with Flager. Sian Rainsley and Mihalikova.
Coming up the ramp and into the transition after the end of the second lap, two different groups formed, with Roksana Slupek leading second, but it was only the second that picked up the pace and took the lead by the end of the first lap. They were Flager, Meissner, and Feuersigner.
power trio cleared
The trio also proved to be a powerful trio, with even the likes of Rainsley, Surpek and Xinyu Lin unable to do anything with their 35 second advantage, while Manson, Ilaria Zane and Erika Hawley were 60 seconds from the front. I was seconds late.
As the small chasing group joined up, 13 riders, including Selina Kramt, Surpek, Rainsley and Munson, were 80 seconds behind the first three, with another 13 lining up two minutes behind. , Sinem Francisca Tous Cervera came out from behind and Vicky Holland scored a try. Get out of the water 3 minutes before returning to the race.
At the bell, the pursuers had been back for two minutes, but then Fluger and Meissner had the fastest transitions, and Feusinger suddenly found himself chasing shadows.
Chaser heats up
Zane, Kramt and Sulpek hit the gas straight away, but it was Manson who was catching up, moving past them into fourth place and beginning his mission to get Feusinger involved.
She did so at the start of lap three, but the two cars in front were helpless and it was Meissner who made the last decisive move to drop the flagger as the blue carpet approached. The Germans trailed by a narrow margin, and Flager was second to happy that Manson had returned from the disappointment of winning bronze at the Yokohama DNF.
“The three of us rode the bikes and it worked out really well, and Lena and I worked out well together. It was really fun riding with her,” Flager said. “I want to thank my coach at Stanford University. I couldn’t have done this without her. I wanted a result like this and today the conditions were met. Georgia (Taylor Brown) worked with me in training. It was perfect for me to widen that gap on the run!”
“It felt good when I was running, but I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t get to the front until the end,” Manson admitted. “I did well on the bike at first, but I lost a lot of time in the last two laps, so I wanted to conserve my legs a bit. I wanted to do the runout at my own pace, but I had a little cramp early on I felt that way, but I wanted to continue working well without trying too hard.”
Here are the results.