Robert Gerritsen | No proofreading - The British marathon athletes have dominated this 43rd edition of the Amsterdam Waterland Marathon, part of the ICF classic marathon series. In both senior classes, the highest rankings were taken home to the British island. Only in the Junior and Masters men categories other paddlers were able to take home the biggest honours.

Short after the spectacular, but rather hard fought, mass-start with 107 paddlers on the starting line a group of seven paddlers took the lead in the race. This group contained four British athletes, Italian Filippo Vincenzi and local racers Bram Brandjes and Joep van Bakel. The British four took this numeral advantage and controlled both the pace of the race and the best washriding positions. This narrowed down the chances for both Dutchies and eventually they had to let the lead group go just before the first portage. Only Italian Filippo Vincenzi held on to the lead group till the end of the race finishing in fifth position. Spanish Alejandro Sanchez and his fellow group of chasers never got close enough to the lead group to catch up and break the tactical dominance of the GB squad. Looking back on the preview none of the tipped favourites managed to conquer podium places. With a growing number of top athletes joining the race we see that it’s getting harder to win the race and unexpected elements and obstacles are becoming a bigger issue even for the top athlete. It’s clear that the stakes are raised and in classic marathon racing sometimes being lucky can be decisive on winning or losing.

Marvin Frick, expected as one of the top paddlers took away his own chances to win and the chances for top candidates Hamar, Richter, Cremers, Soloid, and Graziani by going for a swim one kilometer after the start in the narrow bridge section. His swim blocked the route for many that followed him. Top favourite Emilio Merchan tipped over a few kilometers later, taking away all his chances to win, still managing to finish in 12th place.

Dutch top paddlers Joep van Bakel and Bram Brandjes finished in the 10th and 11th spot. Belgian Dries Corrijn finished in seventh place, even after a somewhat unlucky start he managed to chase and overtake both Dutch paddlers in the end of the race.

In the end Tim Pendle turned out to be the quickest Brit in the lead group, beating the brothers Tim and Andrew Daniels and Keith Moule with a time of 01:40:16,5. That would have been 3,5 seconds faster than Manuel Busto's track record, but since the Brits took a slightly alternative route this is not reckognized as an official track record.

Only in the ladies seniors race the prediction turned out to be pretty accurate. British Lizzie Broughton lived up to her role as a favourite, she took the lead in the ladies race from the very first moment by going along with the chasing group of junior men. The closest competition for Lizzie provided her fellow UK athlete Jenny Illidge. Danish Annemia Pretzmann came in third across the finish line.

In the junior men category Belgian Daan Cox managed to break the dominance of the British athletes by taking possession of the first place beating his closest competition with 50 seconds. The British marathon development squad have found themselves a tough rival for the future with Daan Cox form Neerpelt. The junior ladies race was won by German Henrietta Estorff, followed on second place by Viking club member Naomi Westra.

Tomas Jezek showed that the masters can still give the young boys a very hard time, the Czech paddler took the victory in the Masters category in a time that would give him the 14th place in the overall race.

The British athletes have showcased their ability to win in a field full of top athletes early in this season. We are pleased to see that in all categories the other nations are right on their tail. We see that in the junior categories new talent is out there to take up the competition with the British squad. It is up to the athletes from the other nations to take their revenge the rest of this season. This will be an exciting marathon racing season!

The organisation of the Amsterdam Waterland is proud to organise this growing international event and would like to thank its sponsors Nelo Kayaks, Canoe Centre Arjan Bloem and Jan Ijskes Funderingstechnieken de Coogh for their royal contribution to make this great event possible.

Photographer: Dirk Laninga