Maastrichtenaar Diede Diederiks became world champion cross duathlon on Wednesday. In this sport, participants have to run and mountain bike on an unpaved course.

Diederiks won the title in San Antonio during the World Multisport Championships Ibiza.

She took the lead during the first leg of the race, a 5.8km run through streets and woods. At the start of mountain biking leg, a two-lap 20km across gravel, rocks and paved roads, Diederiks was 35 seconds ahead of the next competitor. Not even a flat tyre could prevent her from extending her lead to 5 minutes. After also finishing the second running leg – another 2.5km – she won the world title. 

"It's quite unexpected. I trained mainly on my time trial bike, and here I had to compete against real specialists," she commented afterwards.

Read the original article in Dutch