The race started right on time at 11 a.m. on Sunday, April 6, a cool morning with a forecast for rain and wind. The nearly 300 athletes gathered in Junin began with a 7.5 km run.

As in recent races, BH Hermans teammate Santiago Arnés decided to set a strong pace at the beginning of the race so as to leave the weakest of the peloton behind him, leaving only his teammates Unai Yus, Nereo Del Nero, Juan Nieva, and Ángel Martinez, and other fierce duathlon atheletes such as the Argentinian Maxi Morales in his wake.

The all-mountain course was an asset to Arnés and to Martinez, the latter being more accustomed to tough mountain courses than to fast and easy ones.

At the first transition, Arnés had a more than two minute advantage over the pack, a good indication that the advantage would only increase in his favour on the mountain bike, his preferred discipline. Behind him came Del Nero, Yus and Morales, all pretty close together.

Then began the hardest 30 km of this international course, made even harder by the drought of the last three months in the area, leaving pools of sand throughout the course. In this section of the race, Arnés kept his lead, and even increased his advantage over his closest rivals who, for those 30 km were in steep competition among themselves, with frequent changes in leader, up to the last and most difficult part of the course, in the area of the Lanin Volcano overlook. At this point, the Del Nero increased his advantage over both Yus and Morales, before Yus himself was also able to break away from Morales.

At the end of this section, the entrance into the transition area was as follows: Arnés, Del Nero, Yus and Morales, with a wide difference between them. The 7 last kilometres were a mere formality, albeit a difficult one, for Arnés, followed by Del Nero, whom Yus attempted to overtake but did not do so, acknowledging that running is still not his strong point. Past the finish line, the podium was all-Spanish: 1st place went to Arnés, 2nd to Del Nero, and 3rd to Yus.

In the women’s division, the main competition was between two Spaniards: Alizia Romero, who held the world and European titles on her arrival in Argentina, and Sara Martín, with the remaining female competitors behind them and led by another Spanish athlete, Erkuden Almagro. Romero, whose strength is running, dominated the first section from beginning to end, but during the next, Martín made her move and reached Romero on the climb, increasing her lead in a descent that was faster and technically more difficult than Romero is used to.

At the end of that section Martín had an advantage of 9 minutes over Romero, who then made no attempt to reach the winner. The women’s podium was also all-Spanish: 1st place was for Sara Martín, 2nd for Alizia Romero and 3rd for Erkuden Almagro.