The WAA Team on the podium
First race of this TGC, the Trans 360: 258 km of race through the island of Gran Canaria, in an already summer heat. The start is at 10am on Wednesday 4 March. Luca and Esther are the two WAA representatives on the start line and start the race very well, they are directly among the first riders. One of the men’s competitors, Esteban Garcia, starts like a rocket and leaves alone at the head of the race. Luca does not panic and sits quietly among the pursuers in order to manage his effort. Esther is in the leading group among the women but at the refueling of km90, she must stop, very embarrassed by large blisters at the feet. Unfortunately, she will not be able to go back, the pain having become too unbearable. The adventure ends here for our champion...who will come back stronger next year.
Luca continues on his pace and runs with the Japanese Goshi Osada. The turn of the race comes at 90 km, when Esteban Garcia chooses to take a big break at Base de Vie n°2 rather than start again immediately. The 30-35km that arrive are indeed very demanding, the positive drop will accelerate. Luca and Goshi choose a different strategy and choose to make a very fast stop at the refuelling and start again right away. So they take advantage of it to overtake the Spaniard. Luca and Osada were in the lead for a while, but the Japanese rider began to suffer and was forced to give up.
Luca is now at the head of the race alone, but Esteban is back in second place. Luca manages to contain him and will finish the race alone in the lead with almost an hour of lead. He won the Trans360 for the second year in a row after 262 km covered and just over 51 hours of racing!
He did it!
Luca arrives on Friday afternoon and, like last year, wanted to continue on the 128km that leaves the same evening. Unfortunately, the Trans 360 was harder than the previous year, especially due to the presence of a big heat, so he decided to rest and not take the start of the 128km. So we find our Ecuadorian athlete Luis Maigualema who will be the only WAA ambassador present on this distance. He finishes his race after 21 hours of effort. Its race is made of ups and downs, which is normal over this distance, but does not drop anything and goes to the end of the race.
An amazing race from Luis
4 of our riders are at the start of the Transadvanced (65km): Maryline Nakache, Yeray Duran, Anna-Marie Watson and Jakob Bloch. Maryline and Anna-Marie start off very well and stand directly in the leading group of the race. They manage to keep their pace throughout the 65km. Maryline manages to widen the gap at the front of the group and leaves alone in the lead. She did not weaken and won the Transgrancanaria Advanced solo! Anna-Marie is no exception since she managed to cling a magnificent 4th place! Magnificent group shot at the front of the race from Team WAA.
What a start for Maryline!
Maryline, a newcomer to the WAA Team, starts her adventure with the brand by winning in her first race. It promises to follow!
Quite a team on the Marathon!
In the men’s category, Yeray also made a very nice race because he managed to climb into the top 10. Jakob also proudly represents Team WAA in a beautiful race. The start of the WAA Marathon is given at the same time as the 65km. For the first stage of the Spain Ultra Cup, Yolanda takes important points since she finishes 6th. Grégory and Jérémy also made a beautiful race. On the 30km, Adrià achieves a very good performance and climbs into the Top 20 despite a big fall in downhill.
This Transgrancanaria 2020 was thus crowned with success for the WAA Team with 2 victories from Luca and Maryline, magnificent 4th and 6th places from Anna-Marie and Yolanda, a top 10 for Yeray and a top 20 for Adrià in their respective races. Jérémy, Luis, Jakob, Grégory also lived up to their ambitions and were able to ideally prepare the rest of their season. This Transgrancanaria 2020 will have fed only one regret: the unhappy Esther who was forced to give up because of large blisters that prevented her from going to the end of the race. She’ll come back stronger in the next race! Find the products worn by our athletes on our online store:
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