German Jan Raphael will defend his title on september 9th in Almere. Raphael won Challenge Almere-Amsterdam 2016 in a time of 8:03:43. But it’s highly possible that the winning time for this year will be under 8 hours.
And yes, that would be really great! That happened just one time before: Jan van der Marel hit that magical border in 1999 by finishing in 7:57:46.
This year Joe Skipper seems like one of the triathletes with a big chance to be one of the fastest. A couple of weeks ago he became second in Roth in a time of 8:03:00, but his fastest time is 7:56:23. And he is really motivated to win in Almere.
In addition, we can expect a lot from the Dutch Evert Scheltinga. This is his first year completely focused on Long Distance. He became seventh in Frankfurt and finished in 8:05:13
The next weeks we will speak multiple pros about their goals for Almere and the way preparation is going. Their stories will be published on our website and social media channels.