pressrelease 19.08.2009

Lisa Norden – Miss Consistent takes silver in London.

 

Sweden’s Lisa Norden continued to light up the World of Triathlon when she provided the enormous London crowd to yet another sprint finish on Saturday.

 

Set on a breathtaking course in the heart of the City of London, the course was something similar to what the athletes will tackle in the 2012 Olympic Games.

 

Following her photo finish in Madrid, Norden has been consistent all season in the ITU World Cup and after another 2^nd place in Hamburg she went into the London round in fourth place overall.

 

Lisa told us afterwards “The race went really well all the way through, swim and bike were a little average, but I followed that with an excellent run. It was the best I have felt so far this year. I’m close to the shape I had when I was at my peak last year – but with room for more improvement I feel” 

 

Norden felt that the chilly temperature at the start, didn’t help her in the swim. “It was  only about 21 degrees in the water, strong winds as we were lining up and waiting to jog out on the pontoon, I got pretty cold.  I think that was my problem on the first lap of the swim. Still, I came out in the back end of the front group and as I warmed up on the 2nd lap I felt better and better.”

 

The race was on on the bike with a flat fast course, but settled down after three laps. The chasing group managed to latch onto the leaders, they included Switzerland’s Nicola Spirig , as they came to the end of the 40k it was going to once again come to down to a running race.

 

Lisa takes up the race once more “I had a really good transition, came out with the first girls and could then just sit back and find my rhythm. I was told by the coach (both before and during the race) not to do too much work, but to leave the pace setting to the others. It was really windy so being on the front would have taken a lot of energy, also considering my size – from which the others would have had a great benefit to sit behind.

 

The lead group went from six to five and then down to four on the last lap. Jenkins of Great Britain put in a surge on the last stretch which meant we dropped Elisabeth May of Luxemburg. With 400m to go we were just three women left to fight out the positions on the podium. My plan was to sit and let someone else initiate the sprint, Spirig went first and I unfortunately got myself on the outside in the last corner. I really tried to kick, but as I put the hammer down my legs seized up and didn’t respond.

 

After a year in which she treated everyone to a photo finish sprint in Madrid, something we’re used to seeing at the end of sprint races on the track, but not after almost two hours of racing, are all the silvers getting frustrating?

 

“Not all, I am on cloud nine, my consistency is the key and one of the things I am really pleased with. Once again I had to settle for second, but this moves me into second overall in the World Cup, even if I can keep this going until Gold Coast I would be quite happy with a world champs silver medal!!!

 

I’ve had a great season so far and I’m loving every minute” she concluded

 

The Swede leaves London and heads for the next round in Japan looking for that elusive victory. Lisa then hits Australia for the series final on the Gold Coast, before completing a round the World trip with races in Dallas and Los Angeles.

 

With many of Sweden’s top sports stars retiring after the last Olympics, they now have a serious Olympic contender in Lisa Norden.