With just two races left to decide the 2021 World Champions, and current Maurice Lacroix Series Ranking leaders Maya Kingma (NED) and Alex Yee (GBR) not racing this weekend, the Groupe Copley World Triathlon Championships Series Montreal is set to see those positions shaken up and the chase blown apart over two days of red-hot super-sprint action on Friday and Saturday, ahead of this year’s Championship Finals in Edmonton.
Kingma scored a stunning gold at WTCS
Leeds and bronze in Yokohama, her 11th place at the Olympic Games taking her
onto 2315 points, 524 ahead of Tokyo 2020 champion Flora Duffy and nearly 1000
ahead of Sophie Coldwell in third. On the men’s side, Yee currently has a much
narrower 39-point lead over new Olympic champion Kristian Blummenfelt and 443
to third-placed Marten Van Riel (BEL).
Both Duffy and Coldwell race in
Montreal, as do the USA’s fourth, sixth and seventh-placed athletes Taylor
Spivey, Katie Zaferes and Taylor Knibb. Germany’s Laura Lindemann and Italy’s
Alice Betto are also set to race the two final events of the season and
currently sit just over 1000 points off the top spot.
Montreal will award 1000 points to
the winner, that number decreasing by 7.5% with each position. The Championship
Finals award 1250 points to the winner with the same incremental decrease
thereafter.
The challenge for Montreal is a brand
new one for World Triathlon, however. A super-sprint format spread across two
days, Friday sees two qualifiers and a repechage to decide who moves on to
Saturday’s finals: an elimination event over three races with the starting
field of 30 athletes cut to 20 after the first and then just 10 doing battle
for gold.
In the men’s race to become World
Champion, Marten van Riel leads the charge to catch leader Yee and current
number two Kristian Blummenfelt. The Belgian put together the second fastest
leg in the Olympic Mixed Relay and needs just 500 points to hit the top spot.
He, along with Hayden Wilde (NZL), Leo Bergere (FRA), Kevin McDowell (USA) and
defending world champion Vincent Luis (FRA) will certainly be looking to close
the gap and make a push for the big prize across what will be two decisive
races in Canada.
WTCS Montreal
13-14 August Individuals
15 August Mixed Relay
TriathlonLive.tv
ABOUT WORLD TRIATHLON
World Triathlon is the international
governing body for the Olympic and Paralympic sport of triathlon and all
related multisport disciplines around the world, including duathlon, aquathlon,
cross triathlon and winter triathlon. Triathlon made its Olympic debut in
Sydney 2000, with a third medal event, the Mixed Team Relay, added to the
programme at Tokyo 2020, while para triathlon was first added to the Paralympic
programme at Rio 2016. World Triathlon is proudly committed to the development
of the sport worldwide, with inclusion, equality, sustainability and
transparency at our core as we seek to help triathletes at all levels of the
sport to be extraordinary.
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