The Australian 100km specialist was back to winning ways in the PTO Asian Open ahead of Anne Haug and Chelsea Sodaro, with the returning Lucy Charles-Barclay in fifth <\/p>
Ashleigh Gentle<\/a>\u00a0returned to the top of the PTO Open podium with one of the most commanding performances of her career in Singapore.<\/strong><\/p>\n The Australian, who had won both PTO Tour events in 2022, but finished second in both Ibiza<\/a><\/strong> and Milwaukee<\/a><\/strong> this year, took the lead midway through the bike leg and cruised to tape head of Germany\u2019s Anne Haug<\/a><\/strong> and reigning Ironman world champion Chelsea Sodaro<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Britain\u2019s Lucy Charles-Barclay<\/strong><\/a> was returning from injury and held on resiliently for fifth, with GB\u2019s other contender Fenella Langridge<\/a><\/strong> in 14th.<\/p>\n It meant another $100k cheque for Gentle to take her total PTO remuneration to more than $500k and make the No 1-ranked athlete currently the biggest prize-money earner in the sport.<\/p>\n Haug\u2019s chances of victory were derailed when tape from her own bike became entangled in her rear wheel towards the end of the bike leg, costing her valuable minutes \u2013 and potentially victory \u2013 as she rectified the issue.<\/p>\n It meant Gentle reversed the one-two finish with Haug in Ibiza, while Sodaro returned to form after a challenging 2023 to date to move through the field with the fastest run leg.<\/p>\n Charles-Barclay\u2019s performance was additionally impressive after revealing early in the week that she had been recovering from a broken foot, with a metatarsal fracture following Ironman 70.3 Kraichgau in May.<\/p>\n In a rare sight in professional triathlon, Charles-Barclay wasn\u2019t the first competitor into T1 as Spain\u2019s former Olympic swimmer Sara Perez Sala led out the 2km swim.<\/p>\n Charles-Barclay, who had led to the Aussie exit at the halfway point \u2013 where the athletes climbed on to a pontoon before diving in again \u2013 was content to follow in the 35-year-old\u2019s wake as they opened a gap on the rest of the field.<\/p>\n In water temperatures approaching a balmy 29 degrees celsius in Marina Bay, New Zealand\u2019s Rebecca Clarke was third onto the bike at 54sec behind.<\/p>\n Clarke was followed by a pack of eight athletes at 1:46 back on the leading pair, including Gentle, Langridge and Sodaro. Haug was a further 45sec adrift.<\/p>\n It was quickly evident that the eight-lap 80km course in Singapore was going to be a tough test, with out-and-back steep climbs over the Benjamin Sheares Bridge, the longest in the city, on each lap.<\/p>\n With the smaller field size of just 20 athletes and a 20m draft zone in place, there was no respite for the triathletes in hot and humid conditions of almost 30 degrees.<\/p>\n While Perez-Sala and Charles-Barclay retained the lead for the first-half of the bike, behind the duo the decisive moves were being made by pre-race favourites Gentle and Haug, with Switzerland\u2019s Imogen Simmonds also in contention.<\/p>\n Gentle powered into the lead just before the halfway mark. The 32-year-old has chosen not to take part in the Ironman 70.3 world champs in Finland next weekend and after four months on the road was taking on her last international race before returning home to Australia.<\/p>\n Behind Gentle, Haug was also flying and had moved up to second before her progress was halted as a piece of tape \u2013 she later said was part of her spare tyre \u2013 came loose and became wound around her rear cassette delaying the German for around 2min as she stopped to untangle it.<\/p>\n Gentle clocked the fastest bike split to reach T2 first, followed by Switzerland\u2019s Simmonds, Charles-Barclay and Sala, with Haug \u2013 having regained her impetus following the bike issue \u2013 having 2:33 to make up on the leader.<\/p>\n With the fastest transition from bike to run, Gentle signalled her intention from the outset and started the three-lap 18km final leg as the fastest on course.<\/p>\n The chasing Haug lost around 30sec over the first 6km lap to Gentle, but was cutting back the time to Charles-Barclay and Simmonds and with just under 10km remaining she moved into second place.<\/p>\n Haug began to pick up speed to make a late charge, but so too did Sodaro, who also moved into a podium position with little to choose between the pace of the leading three and the gaps too large to close<\/p>\n Gentle held her form to the finish to take her third PTO Tour win with a 1:07:26 run to take the tape in 3:41:16, just over 2min ahead of Haug, with Sodaro flying through for third almost 5min back Simmonds, who was brought up in Hong Kong in fourth, and Charles-Barclay in fifth.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n The Australian 100km specialist was back to winning ways in the PTO Asian Open ahead of Anne Haug and Chelsea Sodaro, with the returning Lucy Charles-Barclay in fifth <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":24678,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"4"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2023\/08\/ashleigh-gentle-back-on-top-in-singapore.jpg",1200,800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2023\/08\/ashleigh-gentle-back-on-top-in-singapore-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2023\/08\/ashleigh-gentle-back-on-top-in-singapore-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2023\/08\/ashleigh-gentle-back-on-top-in-singapore-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2023\/08\/ashleigh-gentle-back-on-top-in-singapore-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2023\/08\/ashleigh-gentle-back-on-top-in-singapore.jpg",1200,800,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2023\/08\/ashleigh-gentle-back-on-top-in-singapore.jpg",1200,800,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"The Australian 100km specialist was back to winning ways in the PTO Asian Open ahead of Anne Haug and Chelsea Sodaro, with the returning Lucy Charles-Barclay in fifth","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/24677"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What happened in the swim?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
What happened on the bike?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
What happened on the run?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
PTO Asian Open. Final standings<\/strong><\/h2>\n
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"