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Josh Lewis was proud to take the bull by the horns as he raced to second place at Challenge Almere-Amsterdam.
The event, which was the Long Distance European Championship, was only Lewis’ third over the distance.
He came out of the water with the lead pack of six having sat on swim supremo Lukazs Wojt’s feet for much of the time.
Lewis then forged clear in the early stages of the bike, having set out with the intention of using his bike strength in the first hour to test his rivals, and pulled out a gap of 2:30 by the halfway stage.
“I was a little bit of panic going through my head,” he said.
“I was like, ‘I'm on my own. This wasn't necessarily in the plan at all’. I kind of wanted to be with people so that I could work with them, not completely fry my legs. So I had no idea how that was going to pan out throughout the rest of the race.”
He came into T2 with a 1:22 gap on Pim Van Diemen, with Jesper Svensson the big danger lying 2:40 off the lead.
Lewis enjoyed a strong start to his run, sitting above his usual pace to extend his advantage and by the halfway point he was 3:48 ahead of Svensson.
The wheels then fell off between 26km and 31km when stomach issues effected him badly.
“It went downhill very quickly. From there I was still running okay technique wise, but I had to really button off the gas because I just wasn't able to get anything in, and I knew that was going to be curtains if I wasn't able to do that.”
A bad stitch nearly brought him to a standstill during the third of the four 10km laps, although he rallied slightly for a few km Svensson passed him at the 32km mark ahd he hobbled home.
“My quads just gave way, and it was just another scenario where I had just not got it right on the day,” said Lewis.
“I gave it my best, though, and I put myself in a position to potentially win. I was just four or five minutes off that top step, which, you know, it's a fair old way still, but I came to the finish shoot absolutely thrilled with my performance.”
He had been out front for some six hours.
“I was absolutely thrilled with my performance. Really, really proud of it to take the bull by the horns. I think I had to do that to try and win. Jasper was always going to be able to outrun me, but I gave myself a chance.”
He finished in 7:47.29, the sixth fastest ever recorded at the event.
Lewis averaged 1:11/100m in the swim for 44:53 split, 44.04km/h on the bike riding at about 306 watts for 4:05.15 and 4.07 min/km for a 2:53.44 marathon.
A fast-finishing Lars Lomholt was third, just a minute back, after recording the fastest marathon of the day at 2:39.
“Third time’s a charm,” said Svensson afterwards. He had finished second in 2021 and fourth last year.
“I can’t say I had an amazing day, Josh was killing it out there and I wasn’t gaining any time on the first two laps of the run. I was so tired but I just went all-in and kept going.”
3.8km swim / 180km bike / 42.2km run
ELITE MEN
1. Jesper Svensson (SWE) – 7:41:26
2. Josh Lewis (GBR) – 7:47:29
3. Lars Lomholt (DEN) – 7:48:38
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