How bitter: Former world champion Haug gives up. The reason is a defect a few meters after switching to the bike. She waits 25 minutes for a mechanic, then packs her things.
Anne Haug tried to get air into the silicone tube with her mouth in front of the sympathetic spectators on the side of the road in Nice. “I don’t have a pump anymore, nothing,” she said, completely desperate. “I drove over it somewhere, the tire is completely ruined.” All attempts to repair the defect in the rear wheel were in vain.
For the 2019 world champion and co-favorite at the women’s Ironman premiere in Nice, the World Championships were over after just four of 226 kilometers. “You prepare for this one race a year and then it doesn’t work out. That’s tragic, of course,” said the 41-year-old professional triathlete in the ZDF live stream: “It was irreparable.”
Haug took her bike, handed it over the fence, climbed over the barrier and said goodbye to respectful applause before the race even got serious. “Not delivering is tough,” she stressed.
“It’s devastating, of course. This sport can be cruel sometimes,” said Lucy Charles-Barclay, who was only there as a spectator on Sunday. Less than 24 hours before the start of the race, the 31-year-old Briton, who triumphed in Hawaii last year, had cancelled her participation due to muscle problems.
After just a few hundred meters on the bike course, all of Haug’s dreams of winning her second World Championship title over 3.86 kilometers of swimming, 180.2 kilometers of cycling and 42.2 kilometers of running were dashed. In addition, a series ended for the Bayreuth native: Since her third place in 2018, she had always been on the World Championship podium. “I was lucky at the World Championships for five years, but just not this time.”
Riding the bike with Philipp
At first, everything went absolutely according to plan. After Charles-Barclay withdrew from the start, Haug and her German competitor Laura Philipp were considered the top contenders for the title – a year ago in Hawaii they had finished second (Haug) and third (Philipp) behind Charles-Barclay.
The swim in the Mediterranean Sea, which was only around 21 degrees – wetsuits were also allowed for the professional triathletes – could hardly have been better for the German duo. In the wavy Mediterranean and in difficult conditions, they came out of the water in the chasing group around four minutes behind and got on the bike practically parallel to each other. Only that Haug had to get off again quickly.
“We are simply self-sufficient”
“I was putting on my shoes, but I couldn’t see anything on the road. It was a beautifully swept road and suddenly there was a bang. Then the tire exploded,” she said. The cut was about a centimeter long. Too much to drive back onto the track with the damaged tire. “After 25 minutes, no mechanic came. I had no other choice. We are simply self-sufficient on the track. But you don’t have a new tire with you.”
It was the moral low point of a season that was not easy anyway. Haug had often had to stop training because she was ill. But then she delivered a fantastic world record at the Challenge Roth in early July. A flat tire stopped her in Nice.
Source: Stern
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