FAST. Easy to describe how that one went. After a frothing wetsuit swim in the Alster, a leg searing, technical ride we saw the Men and Women run blazing 14 low/ 15 high 5k splits respectively. Tough to gauge where everyone was at with this race in terms loading cycle but we saw a mixed bag of results with some going well and others not.
MEN
First up were the men on Saturday evening. A 18:52 start time certainly had the boys chomping at the bit to get this sub hour of power underway. Interestingly we saw Gomez lead this swim out over Richard Varga. Varga must have thought to himself, “where are these bubbles coming from?” With his decent showing of 20th perhaps a run focus has just put his swim back enough to appear human now.
Over the first lap of four there was a group of 10 out front. With three Germans in the group it looked like a great opportunity to wow the home crowd. However, at perhaps 7k the chase had closed the gap and we had the race together. Or so we thought, as no sooner had it merged than Dan Wilson launched a well-timed attack getting himself a gap that Clark Ellice and Courtneay Atkinson bridged across on. With 10s quickly gained by the end of the second lap we had an interesting scenario. The gap went up to 15s and then down to 8s throughout the third lap before Colucci jumped across to ignite some more power into the break. Off the bikes the boys had 24s, so not enough to claim the $10,000 prime up for grabs but perhaps enough to get themselves a top 5 finish.
Gomez and Murray lead the chase out of T2 onto the run and within a mile they had reeled in all of the break, incredible pace! Justus was not far behind and found himself in third with Colucci by the end of lap 1. Murray and Gomez would run together until 400m from the finish where Murray re-enacted the Unger-Gomez finish of Hamburg Worlds 2007 to take his first WTS victory. With Murray showing this type of run, it will no doubt have the Brownlee’s pushing the swim/bike that much more in Hyde Park.
Podium: Murray, Gomez, Justus
Surprise: Colucci in 7th
WOMEN
The women’s event went late afternoon Sunday under cool conditions. Again, a wetsuit swim for the ladies had Oliveira lead them into T1 and Klamer with a great swim leading them out. Quickly, two groups formed on the bike, a lead group with a smaller sized chase from behind. Notables missing from the lead pack included Haug and Gentle. The gap slowly closed over the 20k to the point where it essentially merged just as they dismounted. Riding under 30’ for the 20k was quite impressive.
Out onto the run Densham quickly made her way to the front, a position she would never relinquish claiming her first WTS victory in what has been an impressive year to date. Sarah Groff had a great race for second which will have USAT pleased two weeks out of London and Moffatt made the ‘das boot’ podium yet again with third for some beer sloshing celebrations that made ESPN highlights.
Podium: Densham, Groff, Moffatt
Surprise: Roberts in 5th
Next WTS: Stockholm Aug 26th