Race Coverage

Sean & Jan Are National Champions...

Sunday, 29 January 2017 23:10

KING BOREAS WINTER MULTISPORT NATIONALS - Yesterday's national championship winter duathlon--5K-17K-3K--at Lake Phalen was a goodie. Close to 100 sign-ups, but there was some DNS attrition, probably due to the breezy conditions that made the 20-degree temps feel more like -5.

Still, the 75-or-so who raced had a great time.

Our earlier winner predictions were wrong, of course, though our prediction that we would be wrong was spot on. We picked Jason Toth to win the men's race, but veteran late registrant Sean Cooley snuck in and won rather convincingly. We picked Joel LaFrance, a Multisport Rookie of the Year nominee in 2015, to come in 2nd, and he did just that. He looked strong and finished only 1:11 behind national classer, Sean Cooley. Expect Joel to rock socks this summer, perhaps even earning a spot on Team Minnesota....

Cooley and LaFrance were the Top Two last year, but LaFrance came out on top thanks to his elite skiing creds.

Boise pro Chris Ganter, a truly awesome dude who is also an Xterra star and former USAT Duathlon National Champion (Richmond, VA - 2008), rounded out the men's podium. It was Chris' maiden voyage on the fat bike and he had so much fun that he plans to purchase a fattie as soon as he gets back to Idaho. How cool is that?

FYI, Toth finished 5th, one place behind UM runner Aaron Blatnik, who blew the doors off the field in the opening run. Aaron is an awesome guy. We hope he does some summer multis in 2017.

We picked Minnesota Duathete of the Year Jenny Wilcox to take the women's title. We did not know that she was a fat bike newby. She did make the podium, though, finishing 3rd behind the ever-amazing Jan Guenther, who is now a two-time King B champ, and the similarly amazing Jeanne Fleck, who was 3rd here in 2015.

Even if this event does not return in 2016, we hope that Coach K and Jeremy will consider putting on a winter multi (or two, or three). The race is just too cool and too dang much fun to not have as part of Minnesota's multisport landscape.  RESULTS

ED. USAT will be covering the race in a day or so. We will repost their coverage. Photo by Matt McCoy.