Olympic hopefuls are Lanzarote winners

The Lanzarote triathlon season began with a flurry of action in Playa Blanca on Saturday March 8, as two members of the Spanish Olympic squad for Pekin emerged as winners from a field of 140 competitors.

The rugged beachfront and sturdy modern roads through the volcanoc landscape proved to be the ideal testing ground for a 750 metre swim followed by a 20 km bike ride and lastly a 5 km run. Ainhoa Murua was the forst woman home in a dashing one hour 4 minutes and 59 seconds, while Jose Miguel Perez was top man in 55.36 minutes.

 If that sounds impressive, wait until the annual Iron Man event gets underway on May 24 in Puerto del Carmen, there will be 1,200 taking part and it gets really tough with a 3.8 km swim, 180 km bike ride and a 44.2 km run.

If you are lucky enough to be in Lanzarote for the week leading up to Iron Man 2008, you will soon get swept up in the build up and social events that go to make it the sporting highlight of the year. Sands Beach Resort hotel is ideally placed in Costa Teguise, about an hour along the coast, to act as your base for the big event.