Germany’s
Annika Koch continued her striking form to secure gold in the inaugural World
Triathlon Cup Yeongdo this morning. Slovakia’s Romana Gajdošová and Bermuda’s
Erica Hawley produced career-best performances to earn World Cup silver and
bronze respectively in South Korea.
Yeongdo,
South Korea, set the scene for the next stage of the 2023 World Triathlon Cup
tour. 43 women lined up to race on Saturday morning to chase points, rankings
and World Cup medals in hot and humid race conditions.
Zuzana
Michalickova of Slovakia led the women through the 750m swim with Hungary’s
Márta Kropkó, Austria’s Sara Vilic and Canada’s Sophia Howell hot on her heels.
The pace was kept high during the swim and the leaders were able to make a
small break on the rest of the field. Race favourite Annika Koch was swimming
comfortably in the middle of the front group. With 200 metres to go
Michalickova appeared to push the tempo around the final swim buoy to give
herself the best advantage and apply pressure to the women as the finished the
swim segment of the sprint-distance race. Michalickova, Howell, Desirae
Ridenour, Vilic and Koch were among the first women into the first transition
of the day and onto the bike course in Yeongdo. Seven women were in charge of
setting the early pace.
By the
second bike lap the chase group had made up significant time to bring the gap
down to 7-seconds on the leaders and it wasn’t long before both groups made
contact and were riding together. Bermuda’s Erica Hawley and Austria’s Lisa
Perterer were now in touch with the leaders and pushing the pace.
Koch was
driving the pace of the lead group of 21 women with a constant rotation of
athletes taking turns up front to keep the tempo high. Mexico’s Olympian
Cecilia Perez was working hard to stay with the leading women. The leading
women were working incredibly hard in the humid conditions to maintain
separation from the rest of the field.
Korea’s
Gayeon Park was in between the groups riding solo 1-minute down on the leading
group and Ecuador’s Elizabeth Bravo was driving a chase pack further back.
As the
20-kilometre bike portion came to an end it was Koch, Kropko and Ridenour who
produced smooth and fast transitions to commence the 5-kilometre run course.
There was very little separating the leaders, including Mexico’s Sofia
Rodriguez Moreno, Romana Gajdošová (SVK) and Hawley, as the women hit the
pavement to race for medals and crucial positions.
Koch, who
secured her career-best performance in Sunderland last weekend to earn the
World Triathlon Championship Series bronze medal, continued to extend her lead
and showcase her brilliant form. The challenging conditions or travel days
didn’t appear to be taking a toll on the German who dominated the women’s run
course.
The
battle for medals was firing behind the German and was open for the taking
between Hawley, Rodriguez Moreno, Gajdošová, Japan’s Niina Kishimoto,
Michalickova, Australia’s Charlotte Derbyshire and Perterer.
Koch let
nothing get in the way of her superb race form this morning and continued her
podium success as she took the tape to earn World Cup gold in Yeongdo.
Slovakia’s Gajdošová stuck with the leading women across all disciplines and
was able to surge down the blue carpet to secure a career best silver medal
ahead of Bermuda’s Hawley who was awarded bronze and equally a career highlight
on her triathlon resume.
“This
moment was amazing because the race was pretty tough. from the start as I
didn’t feel very strong. I struggled a bit with health and almost didn’t train
this week. At the end of the run, I felt much better than expected and just
tried to push from the beginning and tried to keep the pace until the end. It
was really challenging as the heat was really unbelievable, you really had to
take every water station, I just tried to keep the pace until the finish.
Every
point and every place is really important. I couldn’t perform better, I am just
pretty happy to take maximum points and I am really happy with that. The
location is amazing,” said Koch.
“It’s
crazy. I still can’t believe it. Even when I saw the finish line. It’s really
amazing and I didn’t expect this at all. I just tried to keep my high cadence
and knew I had it in me and tried to not slow down and then we will see at the
finish line,” said Gajdošová.
“I am so
happy, I still can’t really believe it. The first half of the year I was even
questioning going for the Olympic dream so to come and podium it really makes
me believe in myself. It was a hard and honest race out there,” said Hawley.
Rodriguez
Moreno and Kishimoto crossed the line in fourth and fifth place respectively.
Review
the women’s results. https://triathlon.org/results/result/2023_world_triathlon_cup_yeongdo
Replay
the race in full on-demand over on TriathlonLive.tv.
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