After an injury and illness plagued couple of seasons, South Africa’s Henri Schoeman continued his emotional return to the pinnacle of racing with a gold medal at Arena Games Triathlon powered by Zwift Switzerland.
The 31-year-old 2016 Olympic Games bronze medallist took control on the second of the day’s three stages, beating a stacked field of Super League stars in the process and laying down a major marker ahead of the Arena Games 2023 final in London on April 8. France’s Maxime Hueber-Moosbrugger took second, with Swiss racer Simon Westermann pleasing the home crowd with bronze position.
“It feels amazing. I firs want to thank the crowd out here who have pushed us to our absolute limits – the arena here is so compact and electrifying. It’s my first win since all of the injuries and setbacks I’ve faced, and I’m so thrilled with my performance. I’m loving my life right now,” – Henri Schoeman
Arena Games Triathlon, Sursee, Switzerland 2023, Switzerland made its long-awaited Super League debut, with a sell-out crowd filling the CAMPUS Sursee Sportarena on the banks of Lake Sempach. Henri Schoeman was back after his second place at the Arena Games opener in Montreal, Canada, and the return of Justus Nieschlag, the 30-year-old German who has been on the podium in all five Arena Games Triathlon events he’s raced.
Aussie-turned-Brit Max Stapley, 24, who finished second at the Arena Games Triathlon Munich in 2022, was expected to be a race rival for Schoeman and Nieschlag, the latter having largely moved to middle-distance triathlon for 2023.
The action saw a mass start eight length 200m pool swim in a 25m and not 50m pool (a first for the Arena Games), before a 4km Zwift bike leg and a 1km run on an elliptical running machine. Stage 2 would reverse that order, beginning with a 1km mass start run before a 4km bike and a 200m swim. The concluding Stage 3 would open with a Pursuit Start 200m swim, before the 4km bike leg and final 1km run to crown the overall winner.
