Damp and clammy conditions greeted the world’s finest short-course triathletes in Roundhay Park, Leeds, today, as the second round of the 2022 World Triathlon Championship Series got underway.
Topping the billing for the sprint-distance race was double Olympic medallist and adopted Leeds hero, Alex Yee (GBR), two-time world champion Vincent Luis (FRA), Tokyo Olympic bronze medallist Hayden Wilde(NZL) and one Jonny Brownlee, three-time Olympic medallist.
Out of the 750m swim, it was Team France who took the race by the scruff of its neck, Luis eager to put Yokohama behind him after pulling out 1k into the swim with a high heart rate and feeling out of breath.
With only a 1sec advantage post swim, Luis managed to take teammate Leo Bergere, who finished third in Yokohama, with him, the pair adopting a familair Brownlee tactic by going it alone over the five-lap 20km course.
By the of lap one, the French deux the gap to the gigantic chase pack, incuding Yee, Wilde and Brownlee, of 52 athlete was up to 16secs; by the end of lap three that was up to 21secs.
A notable absence at this juncture was two-time 70.3 world champion Gustav Iden, who was racing solo in last place.
Local hearts were broken on lap three as Wilde rode into the back of Brownlee and Yee, along with NZ’s Dylan McCullough, ruining the crowd’s chances of seeing a GB/France battle on the 5K. Afterwards Wilde apologies to the British duo, knowing what it meant to them to miss out on racing in front of their home crowd.
Disaster struck Luis heading into T2, though, as he seemed to forget it was time to swap over, crashing into a barrier at the end of the carpeted section, resulting in a 20sec penalty.
With one of his biggest rivals out, Bergere took to the helm, but it wasn’t enough to hold off Hayden Wilde, who, with fresher legs, having had the comfort of the chase group for the majority of the 20k, moved into first place on lap two of two.
Then it was just a matter of keeping his cool for the final few minutes into the finish, Wilde taking the tape with a grin in 53:18. Berge followed 10s later, with a sprint for third between Italy’s Vasco Vilaca and Germany’s Lasse Luhrs saw Vilaca come up trumps to round off the podium.
Top image: World Triathlon