Flora Duffy's performance this
Saturday to claim the victory for the fourth tie in Hamburg will be one to
remember. The current Olympic and World Champion stormed the field to beat in
the last 300 meters Beth Potter (GBR) despite having to serve a 10 seconds
penalty. Germany’s Lisa Tersch crossed the finish line in third place for much
delight of the thousands of spectators that cheered in the iconic Rathausmarkt
square to grab the first World Triathlon Championship Series podium of her
career.
It was back in 2002 when Hamburg made
its debut as host of the world’s best triathletes, and exactly twenty years
later 55 athletes lined up in the same scenario ready for a day full of
triathlon action, with some of the greatest females athletes of the sport ready
to set their feet in the iconic stage. The sprint-distance course in WTCS
Hamburg starts with a 750m swim in the Binnenalster lake that features a dark,
40m tunnel section under the pedestrian bridge on the way back towards an
imposing transition area in front of the city’s iconic Rathaus. From there,
it’s a flat and technical 6-lap bike of 21km before the 2-lap run brings
another 5km of high drama to decide the medals.
And from the gun, it was American
great swimmer Summer Rappaport taking the lead from the first strokes, looking
forward the make it to the dark tunnel leading the pack, just to avoid the
weird feeling of swimming not seeing who you have in front. She stretched the
pack, followed by some other great swimmers like Vittoria Lopes (BRA), Sian
Rainsley (GBR) or Jolien Vermeylen (BEL), and by the time they made it to the
stairs that lead to transition, they had a long line of athletes ready to
sprint to get on their bikes right behind them.
The leaders out of the water were
quickly joined in the blue carpet by Flora Duffy (BER), and a full squad of
German athletes, Anabel Knoll, Lisa Tersch, Laura Lindeman and Lena Leibner all
making the front group when they jumped on their bikes.
With Taylor Spivey (USA), Maya Kingma
(NED) and Zsanett Bragmayer (HUN) joining the little group, they all made it
through the first couple of laps safely, apart from the small crash that led to
Natalie Van Coeverden having to step out of the race. With Duffy, Kingma and
Spivey taking turns to try to open a gap with the chase group -that included great
runners like Beth Potter (GBR) or Summer Rappaport-, the breakaway only made it
til the third lap, when a massive group of 38 athletes regrouped together,
making it quite complicated to navigate the technical course with a few
chicanes.
By then, the drama in the lead had
already started to play out, with Flora Duffy realising that she had left her
goggles out of the box, which meant that she had to serve a 10 seconds penalty
during the run. The Bermudian started to push hard on the bike up front, but it
was literally impossible to get a breakaway, so by the time the athletes
finished the 6 bike laps, a massive group made it to the second transition all
together. And Duffy knew that she had to go full gas from the beginning.
That is probably easier said than
done, as she was the last one of the group leaving transition. But she was a
woman on a mission, the mission being managing to open a break long enough to
allow her to serve the penalty without having to look back.
The group led by Bragmayer quickly started
to stretch, loosing individuals by the minute, and by the time they all made it
to the first half of the first loop, Flora was already leading, with Potter
following close behind. When they were approaching transition, the reigning
Olympic Champion decided to play mind games and suddenly stopped at the penalty
box, still with another lap to go. She looked anxiously at the official
counting the seconds and saw Potter passing by but she was out of the box right
with Lisa Tersch, who by then was running comfortably in third place.
All the pressure was on Potter now,
who didnt look back but knew that Duffy was chasing her and even though she
tried her best, she was just not able to avoid Duffy passing by her for a
second and last time, only 300 meters before crossing the finish line, to claim
the 13th WTCS victory of her career, the fourth one in Hamburg, where she raced
for the first time back in 2006.
“I couldn’t believe it”, said Duffy
after the race, talking about the penalty. “I came into T2 and I saw that my
goggles were out of the little box and I thought, oh dear! That really
flustered me and I took forever to get my shoes on out of T2 and then Dan, my
husband, shouted at me ’10-second penalty’ and I thought, wow Flora, you’re
really making it hard for yourself today. I’ve never had a penalty, It’s like
now I am making all these mistakes, I’ve got slow transitions, I’m getting
penalties. I guess I am trying to make it interesting for myself and make it
super hard to win. Dad shouted at me to take it after the first lap, I think to
just have a 10-second reset and then to charge it for the last lap but
honestly, I thought I was going to come out of that penalty further back in the
top ten but I was pretty happy that I was still in second. All I had to do was
chase down Beth,” she said.
“I haven’t been pushed like that on
the run. I was like this cannot come down to a sprint finish so I just tried to
lengthen it but I gave everything out there. Super pumped to take the win after
this year, it started off so weird, two times covid, flying to races and my
equipment not making it so I am pumped to win, pumped to get myself back in the
Series and I am excited for the rest of the year, ” explained the Bermudian,
who with this victory is now ranked second on the Maurice Lacroix World
Triathlon Championship Series Rankings, Georgia Taylor-Brown still on the lead
despite not racing here in Hamburg.
The silver medal for Beth Potter was
also a career best for her, after grabbing the first WTCS podium two weeks ago
in Montreal, and is now sitting in third place of the rankings. “I was a bit
sloppy today in some things, I felt a bit tired coming into this, but it was a
nervous two and a half kilometres knowing she (Flora Duffy) was coming. I just
tried to keep my cool in the last little bit. Coming into the season, I wanted
to consistently be in the top five and in my last races I’ve done that so just
need to consolidate on that. I’ve got one last race as part of the season,
that’s the goal so need to rest up for that,” she explained.
For much delight of the local crowds,
third place was for Tersch, who managed to stay ahead of Spivey and claim her
first ever WTCS podium. “I definitely did not expect that. I was just like I am
going to go in, going to try hard and give my best and then I am going to be
happy when I am done but I didn’t think my best would be good enough for third,
so I am really, really happy. I know I can run, it just didn’t show in the past
couple of months so it didn’t come out of nowhere but my running form never
came through in races. Can’t get any better than that, ” she said.
With Spivey claiming the bitter sweet
fourth place, another local hero, Laura Lindemann, closed the top 5 on the day.
Anabel Knoll crossed the finish line right after her to round a great day for
the German team, with three athletes in the top six. Maya Kingma, Sian
Rainsley, Nina Eim and Emy Legault (CAN) closed the top 10.
Results: Elite Women https://www.triathlon.org/results/result/2022_world_triathlon_championship_series_hamburg/546858?mc_cid=a8186fe71c&mc_eid=6139649918
1. Flora
Duffy BER 00:58:37
2. Beth
Potter GBR 00:58:43
3. Lisa
Tertsch GER 00:58:53
4. Taylor
Spivey USA 00:58:58
5. Laura
Lindemann GER 00:59:00
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.
www.triathlon.org
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