ITU Gold Coast – Men : Jo Brownlee Imposes His Will – Mola and Gomez Round Off The Podium, 6th Place Finish For Le Corre, Mislawchuck 18th In His Debut

After a six year absence from the world series, Gold Coast made its return on the ITU circuit with a new and improved race course.

Gold Coast as a race venue has quite a history. Alistair Brownlee (absent from this edition of the race) won his first grand finale here as a junior and his brother Jo Brownlee was defeated by a certain Mario Mola. This time around, Jo had no intentions of playing second fiddle to the Spaniard. He showed it with a dominating performance.

Some of the stronger swimmers were absent from this race. Richard Varga (SLO) was clearly on a mission. Taking advantage of a triangular shaped swim course, he imposed his will, frequently changing up the rhythm, finally putting the nail to the coffin in the second lap.

Once he was sure Jonathan Brownlee (his training partner) was following in his draft, he was able to accelerate one last time on the finishing stretch to create a distance between Jo and his closest rivals. Only the Polyanskiy brothers (RUS) were able to keep up.

The gap between this first group and Le Corre (FRA), Hernandez (ESP) Alarza (ESP) and Gomez (ESP) maxed out at a small 6 seconds.

David Hauss had an impressive swim finishing in Le Corre’s group, though he was forced to serve a 15 second penalty for having false started. This penalty brought him down to the third group. We later found out that he was ill prior to the race start and so his 38th place finish is not necessarily indicative of his form.

The first chase group was never able to bridge the gap, which remained constant through the first few laps of the bike. The chase group eventually gave up trying. On the other hand, the bigger second chase group including Murray, Mola, Atkinson, Mislawchuk continued to gain ground and eventually caught up to the Le Corre and Gomez group.

The lead, working together under the lead of Jo Brownlee, ran into some bad luck. Igor Polyanskiy crashed in a roundabout, broke one of his wheels and was forced to abandon the race. Jo was able to avoid the crash and he continued along with Igor’s older brother whose concentration was seemingly affected by his brothers bad fortune.

The main chase group was thus able to come close the gap to 20 seconds coming into T2 (which had been close to 1 minute near the start of the bike leg). We began to wonder if Jo had simply put up too big an effort on the bike.

Any doubt as to how much Jo had left in the tank was quickly erased when the run started. He kept his main rivals at bay (Murray, Mola, Gomez). The Brit cruised to victory with a 10km time of 29:49.

This performance undoubtedly confirms that Jo Brownlee has regained his confidence. He showed that he can hold off the likes of Gomez on the run even after having ridden in a small group throughout the bike leg. This is the first time that he has put together a race of this type without the help of his brother. The Brownlees, when working together, have been known to race this way.

Mola, Gomez, Murray, Hernandez and Le Corre stayed together for most of the run. Mola broke away at about the halfway point when it was clear that this group was not gaining ground on the leader.

Le Corre, slightly fading near the end, finishing in 6th place had another solid performance. This confirms that he belongs with the big boys and his competitors are sure to have a newfound respect for the emerging Frenchman.

Mola, as per usual had the fastest run of the day (29:44), but was again hampered by a sub-par swim.

Gomez rounded off the podium. Its his 30th medal in 43 career WTS appearances. The 35 year old Courtney Atkinson (AUS) had a surprisingly strong 10th place finish. The second seeded Aussie, his Olympic dream for Rio seems more likely following this performance.

For the Canadians, Tyler Mislawchuk (Versailles) and Alexis Lepage (Montepelier) made their WTS debut. Lepage was forced to abandon the race during the bike. We’ll chalk this one up as a learning experience for the young Quebecer.

As for Mislawchuk, he finished in a very impressive 18th position. Quite an exploit for a first world series appearance. This is a nice change of fortune for the Manitoban who ran into a recent series of bad luck (broken jaw, visa issues that led to a deportation of Belgium).