Heats: Gustav Iden Overcomes Penalty But Still Faces Repechage As Kyle Smith Stuns At Arena Games Triathlon London

Gustav Iden made it into Saturday’s repechage to reach the final of Arena Games Triathlon powered by Zwift London despite serving a five second penalty.

The Norwegian was handed the penalty after missing the mandatory athlete briefing at the London Aquatics Centre on Thursday.

Though finishing in the top two to qualify automatically for the final was all but ruled out as a result, the Ironman World Champion knew he faced a battle to secure a top seven finish to make it to the repechage.

It didn’t help that he was in Heat 2 – the so-called ‘Heat of Death’ – and he was last out of the water in the Stage 1 swim when he had to stand at his bike and serve the five-second penalty. However, he put the power down on the bike and incredibly moved up to fifth heading onto the run.

By the end of the race he had moved up to third with a tipsy-turvy battle seeing title favourite Henri Schoeman finishing less than a second behind Ironman 70.3 specialist Kyle Smith with both qualifying automatically.

Home favourites Dan Dixon and Jack Stanton-Stock also face the repechage, but there was bad news for Jamie Riddle who was forced to pull out during the run in Stage 1 through illness.

Heat 1 saw Aurelien Raphael go out hard to set a new Arena Games Triathlon powered by Zwift swim record of 2:01.

However, Nicolo Strada and Chase McQueen passed him during the bike on Stage 1 and the pair never looked back. The gap grew and grew between them and the rest with Raphael also settling into a comfortable pace to ease through to the repechage.

Heat 3 was a hard fought race and by the end of Stage 1 the top five were separated by little more than seven seconds.

Stage 2 saw Simon Westermann take the lead and break clear with Maxime Hueber-Moosbrugger. The lead swapped again by the end of the heat but Justus Nieschlag, a five-time Arena Games Triathlon podium athlete, has to go into the repechage.

Heat 1

Final Qualifiers: Nicolo Strada (22:44), Chase McQueen (22:48)

Repechage qualifiers: Jeremy Briand (23:00), Aurelien Raphael (23:11), Darr Smith (23:15), Luke McCarron (23:23), Vitalii Vorontsov (23:24)

Heat 2

Final Qualifiers: Kyle Smith (22:24), Henri Schoeman (22:24)

Repechage qualifiers: Gustav Iden (22:58), Dan Dixon (23:13), Jawad Abdelmoula (23:14), Max Stapley (23:27), Jack Stanton-Stock (23:53)

Heat 3

Final Qualifiers: Maxime Hueber-Moosbrugger (22:46), Simon Westermann (22:47)

Repechage qualifiers: Johannes Vogel (22:57), Maciej Bruzdziak (22:59), Bence Bicak (23:05), Fabian Meeusen (23:05), Justus Nieschlag (23:09)

Fastest losers qualifying for repechage: Jorian Driesen (23:45), Donald Hillebregt (23:47), Alois Knabl (23:54), Martin Kropko (24:16), Mitch Kolkman (24:17)