Lisa Norden Wins At Home

It was a good day for Olympic medalists in Stockholm. After Great Britain’s Jonathan Brownlee took the men’s title, women’s silver medalist Lisa Norden of Sweden earned the women’s victory. She combined a 10:06 swim, a 32:50 bike and a 16:03 run to win the sprint-distance race. The Netherlands’ Maaike Caelers finished second, with Chile’s Barbara Riveros Diaz rounding out the podium.

Read the race recap from ITU below:

Norden gave the home crowd what they were hoping for, a win on home soil as she claimed her third ITU World Triathlon Series win in a dominant all around performance in Stockholm on Saturday. Norden beat the Caelers and Riveros Diaz, just two and a half weeks after her incredible sprint for silver at the London 2012 Olympic Games. In summing up what the win meant to her, Norden said she couldn’t think of a more perfect outcome.

“If you have kind of a dream scenario how could my life possibly turn out as it’s best, this would have been it and I’m in it which is incredible,” Norden said. “Going out on the second lap knowing I had a gap, I knew all I had to do was keep running and I felt I had the strength, I had the legs and I had the crowd for it. So, incredible.”

In the 750m wetsuit swim, Norden was one of the first out of the water, just behind Spain’s Caroline Routier and next to Australia’s Emma Moffatt and Erin Densham. In a fast and frenetic 20km bike through the streets of Stockholm, Norden, Barbara Riveros Diaz and Densham stayed in the lead pack for the entire leg, while others changed around them.

The packs did come together just ahead of T2, and it was Norden who was first out of transition and straight to the front. While her former Team ITU development teammate Riveros Diaz stayed on her shoulder for the first lap, Norden stormed ahead from the start of the second lap and didn’t look back. She crossed the line in 1 hour and 36 seconds for her third ITU World Triathlon Series win, and first since Hamburg in 2010.

Behind her the fight for podium places became interesting. Densham and Haug pulled ahead of the field but they were both caught by the barnstorming Caelers, who when flew past Riveros Diaz with half a lap to go. The London Olympian has has a breakthrough season, as she claimed her first ITU World Cup podium in Tiszaujvaros just before the Games and now her first ITU World Triathlon Series medal in Stockholm.

Riveros Diaz said she was excited to be able to put a positive spin on her August, after a frustrating Olympic race. Haug finished fourth for the third consecutive ITU World Triathlon Series race, after also finishing just off the podium in Madrid and Hamburg. Densham’s fifth place was enough for her to take over the lead in the overall ITU World Triathlon Series rankings, moving ahead of New Zealand’s Andrea Hewitt.

ITU World Triathlon Series Stockholm
Aug. 25, 2012 – Stockholm, Sweden
750m swim, 20km bike, 5km run

Women’s Race
1. Lisa Norden (SWE) 1:00:36
2. Maaike Caelers (NED) 1:00:45
3. Barbara Riveroz Diaz (CHI) 1:00:55
4. Ane Hauge (GER) 1:00:59
5. Erin Densham (AUS) 1:01:04

Complete results.