Challenge Cagnes-Sur-Mer 2023 results: Mennesson and Simmonds win

Home favourite William Mennesson took the win at the first ever edition of Challenge Cagnes-Sur-Mer in the South of France, as Switzerland’s Imogen Simmonds was victorious in the women’s race.

Both Mennesson and Simmonds won by large margins, with the rest of the field in the women’s race in particular struggling to stay close to a dominant Simmonds, who comfortably took her first win of the season.

Pro Men

In the men’s race, Mennesson exited the water +1:16 down on the leaders, as Frenchman Brice Hacquart impressively opened up a gap over the rest of the field up front, with Cenzio Lebot and Aussie Nicholas Free next out of the water at +0:14 and +0:38.

On to the bike, Mennesson quickly closed down the gap to the front and started pushing the pace, opening up a lead of +0:54 to Hacquart by the 26km mark on the Col de Vence before continuing to dominate throughout the remainder of the bike leg to eventually come into T2 with a buffer of more than six minutes.

Provided he didn’t massively blow up on the run, the win seemed to be in the hands of Mennesson, with his nearest rivals Thomas Navarro and Nathan Guerbeur at +6:43 leaving transition and Free way back at +9:41.

Out on the run course, Navarro and Guerbeur were hunting Mennesson down, but weren’t making significant inroads, with the gap only narrowed down by a further 20 seconds at the halfway mark, as Free made it up on to the shoulders of the French duo.

Challenge Cagnes-Sur-Mer men's podium — Photo Credit – Challenge Family

In the end, Mennesson held strong to win by over five minutes, with Free taking second place with a strong run of 1:05:56, as Guerbeur just outlasted Navarro to take the final spot on the podium.

After his win, Mennesson shared that he had planned to work hard on the bike, with his race tactics executed to perfection on the challenging course in the South of France.

“It was a really good day, I had a pretty good swim and was where I wanted to be. I tried to ride hard on the bike and create a bit of a gap so I had a good lead heading into the run. I really enjoyed the course and the atmosphere here.”

Pro Women

In the women’s race, Switzerland’s Simmonds was dominant from start to finish, as she exited the water in 26:30, more than two and a half minutes ahead of her nearest competitor and from then onwards never looked back.

On the bike, the PTO World #49 kept the pressure on, growing the gap to second place Girogia Priarone of Italy to well over 15 minutes, to make the win look like an absolute certainty as she headed out on to the run.

Coming into T2, Priarone had a three minute lead over third place Lina-Kristin Schink of Germany, with this pair battling it out with a number of strong female age groupers who were battling it out amongst the professionals.

With one hand on the win at the start of the run, Simmonds cruised around the course to take the tape comfortably, as Priarone held on for second at +18:36 down and Schink finished third in the professional field, +26:24 behind Simmonds.

After the race, Simmonds was full of praise for the course, sharing her delight at the opportunity to race in such a beautiful part of the world.

“I really want to thank this beautiful part of the country, the Côte d’Azur, this is such a stunning course! It was a fantastic race, I really enjoyed it, especially the bike part, the swim was beautiful and thank goodness there were so many spectators on the run as I really needed them for that 21k in the sun!”