These victories seal the great success of the return of the Challenge Family to Romagna.
12th May 2024 – The weather conditions before the start are excellent. Clear skies, mild temperatures and a shallow sea welcomed over 1000 participants to the first edition of Challenge Cesenatico.
Alessandro Fabian winner of Challenge Cesenatico 2024
The first to start will be the men pros.
The crowd is waiting for Alessandro Fabian, a national idol with two Olympic Games under his belt and two seasons dedicated to long distances. Alessandro is here in Cesenatico in search of reassurance, having recovered from his withdrawal from the Challenge Gran Canaria at the end of April.
Alessandro is not the only athlete at the start of the pros race. The comeback to competition of Austrian Thomas Steger, silver medallist at the Caldaro International Triathlon last week and winner of the last Romagna Challenge Family race in Riccione two years ago, is also causing excitement.
The swim leg brought a trio consisting of Swiss Sven Thalmann, Alessandro Fabian and Serbian Ognjen Stoianovic into T1 first. The chasers were very close to the leaders and all the top ten athletes left T1 within 30 seconds.
The cycling leg began to set the pace for the day. Leiss and Thalmann tried to get away in two, but they could not get away from Fabian and Bolbat, who did not let go. It was Fabian himself who caught up with Leiss and had a gap of 1’30” on the outriders at the entrance to T2.
However, just 5km of running were enough to put the Italian at the head of the field and launch a long attack that saw him cross the line first in the Challenge Cesenatico and write his name in the roll of honour of an event that seems to have a great future ahead of it. The men’s podium was completed by Ognjen Stojanovic and Arne Leiss, who took silver and bronze respectively.
The first three athletes of the women’s Challenge Cesenatico 2024
The PRO women will start 3′ behind their male counterparts.
The predictions on the eve of the race point to France’s Charlotte Faivre and Britain’s Bedwell Abigail. The home crowd will be rooting for Marta Bernardi, the 2023 Italian Middle Triathlon Champion. Marta returns to Romagna after her bronze medal at Challenge Riccione 2021 and her victory at the 70.3 in Cascais in 2022.
In the swimming section, Bedwell dominated and entered T1 1’20” ahead of the chasing pair of Bernardi and Faivre.
On the bike, the cards were partly reshuffled and at the 35km mark, Faivre regained the lead and took the lead, followed by the Briton. Marta Bernardi lost positions and the partial podium was now completed by Danish rider Anastacia Nielsen. In the women’s T2, Aurelia Boulanger was 5′ ahead of her compatriot Faivre, who was 3′ ahead of Nielsen.
The women’s race was a great solo by Aurelia Boulanger, who set an unsustainable pace for her opponents from the very first metres. With an elastic and fluid action from the first to the last kilometre, Aurelia Boulanger became the queen of Cesenatico, relegating Charlotte Faivre and Anastacia Nielsen to second and third place respectively.
