A strong field of 46 elite men lined up, on the white sand of Busan’s famous beach, for the inaugural World Triathlon Cup Haeundae, in favourable race conditions. The men’s race launched from Haeundae Beach at 1030AM KST, for the 750m ocean swim, where the water temperature was 21.5°C and the air temperature had risen slightly to 17°C, since the women’s race earlier, ensuring a non-wetsuit swim. Today’s sprint distance course featured a 5-lapped bike course (20km) and closed with a 4-lapped run segment (5km).
Italy’s Alessio Crociani was the
first elite male out of the swim and into transition, to commence the opening
lap of the bike course. A group of 10 elite men formed out in front, taking
short turns and getting organisaed. The group, which included Crociani, Japan’s
Takumi Hojo and Jumpei Furuya, Italy’s Nicola Azzano, Australia’s Max Stapley
and Frenchman Anthony Pujades, was 24-seconds ahead of the chase group. The
second group included pre-race favourite Romania’s Felix Duchampt and Italy’s
Michele Sarzilla.
The front group of men worked
together through the final lap of the bike segment and extended their lead by
over 1-minute, all in a position to race for the medals, as they entered the
final transition of the day.
Hojo, who has shown incredible run
form in recent World Triathlon events, blasted out of transition with Pujades
and Azzano on the hunt. All three athletes were fixed on being in medal
contention. Crociani was moving in fourth position with Furuya in fifth. The
three front men continued to build each lap.
At the halfway point of the run
Purjades surged out in front with Hojo attempting to grip but the Frenchman had
the strongest of the day. With an almighty stretch to the finish, Purjades
claimed the gold medal in Haeundae!
“It was a crazy good finish for me
and am so happy to do it. It’s been a while for me since I have raced in ITU
(World Triathlon) races so yes, such a happy man now. It was a really nice
race, I enjoyed it alot, so when is the next one now," said Purjades.
“Most of the strategy was to save as
much energy as I could until the run and then I tried to build my run, because
it was four laps so it was quite easy to build it.”
“It was quite hard with the
quarantine here but such a happy crew and everything was done well so that we
could race, just thankful.”
Hojo produced an impressive
performance in Busan to earn his first World Cup silver medal.
“I am so happy, I am on the podium,
at a World Triathlon Cup, for the first time," Hojo said.
In a sprint for third place, it was
Italy’s Nicola Azzano who clutched the bronze medal in the inaugural World
Triathlon Cup Haeundae.
“We exited the swim and we were in a
group of 10. I thought ok, it’s a good group of strong bikers, Let’s go all out
and see what could happen. It worked really well so I am really happy. I wanted
to put a really good swim in today and that’s what I did, I wanted to go all
out in the bike and breakaway and that’s what we did. I am really happy,"
said Azzano.
Replay the races on-demand at
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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