Obviously in the form of her life Lee’s victory came 3 weeks after she won the Cagliari ITU Triathlon World Cup.
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Lucy Hall set the pace during the opening 1.5km swim in typical style, covering the course in 17:55, with Lee 46 seconds back in 18th position.
However Lee made ground on the bike to join her team mate at the front and by the time they left T2 to start the 10km run, they had built a lead of 90 seconds.
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Lee held her nerve to finish ahead of Yuliya Yelistratova (UKR) and Zsofia Kovacs (HUN), while Hall finished in tenth.
Lee said “It feels amazing to be European Champion although I am not sure it’s sunk in yet. I came out the swim behind the main group and worked really hard on the bike to get back to the lead group before pushing hard on the run for the win. On the third lap, I really began to feel the effort I had made on the bike!
And there could easily have been another gold in the junior men’s race where Samuel Dickinson lost out on the gold medal by just one second to Spain’s Javier Lluch Perez, the race coming down to a battle over the final 5km run as a group of 17 athletes reached T2 together in close order.
It was also gold for both GB’s senior and junior relay teams in the mixed relay event. In the senior race Lucy Hall and Tom Bishop got the Great Britain Team off to a solid start completing the first two legs of the race. Newly crowned European Champion India Lee continued an unforgettable major championships with a strong run performance before Grant Sheldon led the team home to European glory.
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The junior mixed relay team of Sam Dickinson, Sian Rainsley, Kate Waugh and Alex Yee added a second relay gold in the final race of the day in Portugal.
41 medals for GB age groupers at Europeans