There were a few questions about Alistair Brownlee’s fitness coming into his first WTS test in six months, but the 2012 Olympic champion answered all doubts in the final 1500 meters of a hard fought Cape Town contest.

When it was over, the elder Brownlee ran a race-best 30:05 10k to draw away from 4-time ITU World Champion Javier Gomez of Spain. Brownlee crossed the line in the swim-shortened race in 1:39:19 with a 5 seconds margin on Gomez and 9 seconds on 3rd-place finisher Vincent Luis of France. South African home country favorite Richard Murray, who led most of the run, faded to 4th at the end.

The win was Alistair’s own record-extending 18th WTS victory in 27 attempts. That is 8 more than Gomez, whose second place finish put him far atop the 2015 Columbia Threadneedle WTS standings with 2,707 points after previous points leader Jonathan Brownlee skipped this round. Fellow Spaniard Mario Mola, who lost touch with the leaders after a minor wobble in T2 and finished 8th, advanced to 2nd in the standings with 2,273 points. Fernando Alarza made it a 1-2-3 for Spain in the points chase when his 5th place finish at Cape Town brought him to 2,221 points - 35 ahead of Jonathan Brownlee.

Brownlee said he was not was at all sure what to expect after taking so much time off due to injury. “Of course you never know, all you can do is train as hard as you can and put everything in that you can on the day,” said Brownlee. “I knew I wasn't that fit and I didn’t have good legs on that first lap to be honest. The whole thing was tough, but I am so glad to have the win.”

Brownlee had no hard feelings about a mishap midway through the run when he tripped slightly on the heel of Javier Gomez's shoe and fell 30 meters back before recovering. “The whole thing when we touched was not done in bad faith,” said Brownlee. “Richard [Murray] was going across the course to the left and Javier followed him. I got caught as he came across and I tripped a bit on his foot. When you go so hard it is tough and you have to be careful.”

Gomez was satisfied with his runner-up finish which made him 6-2-3-2 for the year. “I was 6th out of the water, stayed close on the bike and ran as hard as I could,” said Gomez. “On the last lap I gave it everything I had and secured second place. Alistair was too strong today and I was happy with second.”

Of the incident on the run, Gomez said, “I was just following Richard and he moved to the left. I followed him and unfortunately Alistair and I touched.”

Race recap

With water temp at 53 Fahrenheit, the men faced a single 750 meter lap which promised to benefit weaker swimmers/faster runners like Mario Mola and Richard Murray. Gomez, a little disappointed with his winless record so far this year, headed out front, not content to follow the feet of the usual front running swimmers.

Gomez stumbled a bit climbing on to the exit ramp but still finished the swim first in 8:31 and reached his bike first in 9:13. Dmitry Polyanskiy was 3rd, Henri Schoeman 8th, Alistair Brownlee 9th, Pierre Le Corre 14th, Vincent Luis 16th, and Joao Silva 22nd – 12 seconds down. Key point with the shortened swim - Richard Murray (25th) and Mario Mola (39th) were closer than usual.

Once the bike started, there were 45 in the front group within 16 seconds and a chase group 40 seconds arrears. They were led by Fernando Alarza and included Gomez 4th, Silva 8th, Le Corre 9th, Murray 10th, Alistair Brownlee 12th, Joao Pereira 16th, Vincent Luis 19th, Mola 27th, and Vicente Hernandez 36th

On Lap 1, Lukas Siska crashed and withdrew. On lap 2, Lawrence Fanous of Jordan crashed heavily and withdrew. Meanwhile Norway super biker Kristian Blummenfelt took the lead as the lead group of 45 stayed within 15 seconds and the chase group pulled a bit closer – 35 seconds back.

On Lap 3, a group of three made the first of many unsuccessful small breaks which were quickly covered. As the front group rolled merrily along, Gomez tucked in 13th, Murray 14th, Luis 16th, Mola 17th, Le Corre 18th, Silva 19th, Brownlee 24th, Hernandez 29th, Sven Riederer 41st Dmitry Polyanskiy 42nd – just 8 seconds back at the tag end of the front pack.

After 4 laps and 17.8km, the chase group caught the leaders making for e 58-man parade covering 400 meters and 17 seconds.

On Lap 5, Brownlee makes a move, trying to lure some co-conspirators but the move failed to ignite a revolution and he settled back into the pack. Two minutes later, Brownlee, Blummenfelt and two others made a foray, but the move was covered again. On Lap 6, Murray made a 100 meter break but no one went with and he relaxed and retreated back into the pack. As Gomez led, the pack stacked up and formed an arrow formation a dangerous 10 wide.

On Lap 7, Aurelien Raphael of France made a push joined by Stefan Zachaeus of Luxembourg, but the gap was not significant. Later long shots Italian Alessandro Fabian joined by Turkish triathlete Jonas Schomburg made a 150 meter break. Two minutes later Richard Murray made a surge to bridge the gap, bringing all the heavy hitters back to the front. Surely with such a large lead pack on the bike, the race was fated to end up as another wet 10k run.

In the T2 scrum, Brownlee was up front and safe while Mola ran into some athletes and did a quick 360 and lost 10 seconds.

Starting the run, a lead group of 6 formed including Murray, Luis, Gomez, Brownlee, Alarza and Pierre Le Corre with Mola 40 meters back after his tumble in transition. After one 2.4k lap, Murray led Luis, Gomez, Brownlee, and Alarza, followed 8 seconds later by Le Corre and 11 seconds further arrears were Mola and Sven Riederer of Switzerland.

On Lap 2, Alistair tripped on Gomez’s heel, stopped for a few seconds to recover, dropping 30 meters back before surging to rejoin the leaders and leaving Alarza behind. Some 20 seconds later Riederer led the chasers, followed by Mola, Le Corre, Crisanto Grajales of Mexico, Dmitry Polyanskiy of Russia, Joao Pereira of Portugal, Alexander Bryukhankov of Russia and Jarrod Shoemaker of the U.S.

On lap three, Murray and Gomez started to open a tiny gap to Brownlee, with Luis staring to fade out of the picture. Murray, inspired by his home country crowd, refused to let anyone else take a turn at the front.

Then, approaching the bell for the final Lap, Gomez surged to the front as Murray and Brownlee looked relaxed nearby, waiting for the decisive moment. With 1.5k to go, Murray, with the fastest sprint, looked relaxed as Gomez and Brownlee were showing the strain. At the final run turnaround, Vincent Luis, with a dangerous sprint, closed back on the leaders.

With a kilometer to go, in a jolt of adrenaline Gomez and Brownlee left Murray in their wake. Then Brownlee broke away from Gomez. At the same time, Murray started to fade and looked over his shoulder. “When I saw that,” said Luis, “I knew I could catch him.”

At the finish, Brownlee’s race-best 30:05 run brought him to the finish in 1:39:19 with a 5 seconds margin on Gomez and 9 seconds on 3rd-place finisher Luis, followed by a toasted Murray in 4th, 11 seconds out of the podium.

While he was already a multiple WTS medalist in sprint events, Luis had been aiming at a podium at the Olympic distance for some time. On Sunday, he got it.

WTS Cape Town
Cape Town, South Africa
April 26, 2015
S 750m / B 40k / R 10k

Results

Men

1. Alistair Brownlee (GBR) 1:39:19
2. Javier Gomez (ESP) 1:39:24
3. Vincent Luis (FRA) 1:39:28
4. Richard Murray (RSA) 1:39:39
5. Fernando Alarza (ESP) 1:39:51
6. Sven Riederer (SUI) 1:40:00
7. Pierre le Corre (FRA) 1:40:07
8. Mario Mola (ESP) 1:40:16
9. Crisanto Grajales (MEX) 1:40:30
10. Joao Pereira (POR) 1:40:32
12. Jarrod Shoemaker (USA) 1:40:43
16. Kevin McDowell (USA) 1:41:04
26. Sean Jefferson (USA) 1:41:51
28, Gregory Billington (USA) 1L42:01
38. Joe Maloy (USA) 1:43:00
50. Chris Braden (USA) 1:44:57