The Munich opener of the 2022 Arena
Games Triathlon powered by Zwift delivered a weekend’s worth of
headline-grabbing moments, with Britain’s Beth Potter and France’s Aurelien
Raphael ultimately stealing the show with two outstanding wins.
This Saturday the action heads to
London, where it is sure to raise the bar once more, as well as the roof of the
Olympic Aquatics Centre thanks to a sell-out crowd, with no fewer than 11 Brits
– including Olympic gold medallists Georgia Taylor-Brown, local hero Alex Yee
and Jessica Learmonth – set to start.
The format again covers a 200m pool
swim, 4km Zwift bike and 1km run - though not always in that order - but this
time around the Zwift drafting option will be disabled for the first time, a
move that could really see the bike segments blown apart.
Women’s preview
With no fewer than eight athletes
heading into the heats, the British women may be the ones hitting east London
en masse, but there will be plenty of competition from across Europe for those
precious spots in the afternoon’s final.
Of those eight, it is hard not to
back last week’s winner Beth Potter, Olympians Georgia Taylor-Brown and Jessica
Learmonth to be among the names likely to be battling it out for the medals.
Potter shone in Munich, just as she did in London in 2021, her mastery of the
format clear for all to see as she started the final stage with 40 seconds’
advantage over the field, a lead she then extended all the way to the finish
line.
Learmonth won the inaugural Arena
Games in Rotterdam back in 2020, her consistently powerful swim over all three
stages setting her on course for a historic first gold of the hybrid event.
Taylor-Brown finished fifth in the event’s pandemic-inspired debut, just as she
did here last year, and will be looking to use the short, sharp racing as
something of a sharpener for the forthcoming WTCS Yokohama opener in mid-May.
Bronze medallist a fortnight ago in
Germany was home crowd favourite Anabel Knoll, and she will have used that race
to figure out exactly how to pace herself and come back even stronger for the
second event.
Cassandre Beaugrand of France is all
set to make her first Arena Games Triathlon appearance. No stranger to short
and punchy racing as a key member of the world-conquering French Mixed Relay
team, she will need to quickly master the demands of the curved treadmill and
Zwift integration if she’s to make any impact on the podium, just as Max
Stapley did two weeks ago.
Spain’s Anna Godoy Contreras will be
eager to go one better than her fourth two weeks ago, while Kate Waugh and Sian
Rainsley are two more Brits looking to show what they are capable of and ride
on the atmosphere of what is set to be a packed London Aquatics Centre. “I don’t
think i’m quite prepared for how much it’s going to hurt again,” says the
returning Waugh on the latest episode of the World Triathlon Podcast. “There’s
nothing quite like the lung burn of an Arena Games Triathlon!”
Men’s preview
Aurelien Raphael returns to the start
list surely among the red-hot favourites after his devastating performance in
and out of the Munich pool that took him to gold a fortnight ago. Lightening in
the water, efficient in transition, powerful on the bike and relentless on the run,
it was the complete Arena Games performance from the 33-year-old Frenchman.
Alex Yee’s bike watts to try and
bridge to the pack over the first stage were impressive, but ultimately that
effort took too much out of his legs to be able to challenge for the medals
over the final kilometre. With the removal of the drafting setting for the
London leg, there will be nowhere for the pack to hide this time around and Yee
will be looking for redemption in front of a sell-out home crowd.
Justus Nieschlag clearly enjoyed the
crowds in Munich and has the experience of this format that could make the
difference, but it was the Australian Max Stapley who took the race by the
scruff of the neck to score a fantastic silver, driving to the line narrowly
ahead of the German.
Takumi Hojo makes his Arena Games
debut for Japan fresh from a Europe Triathlon Cup victory in Quarteira and Joao
Silva and Ricardo Batista represent the new and old guard of Portuguese
triathlon ready to make a big impact.
Austria’s experienced Pertl brother
Lukas and Philip take a heat each and hope to meet face-to-face in Saturday
afternoon’s final, Maxime Hueber-Moosbrugger (FRA) has bags of potential he
will want to put on show following World Duathlon silver at the end of 2021 and
Gordon Benson will be eager to consign his bad luck with technical issues in
Munich and give the home fans plenty to cheer over the closing stages.
For the full start lists and heats,
click here
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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