Jacob Birtwhistle of Australia broke away from a 5-man pack on the last lap to outrun Spaniards David Castro and Nan Oliveras to the finish of the Under 23 Men’s event at the ITU World Championship Grand Final. Birtwhistle unleashed a race-best run to finish in 1:40:51 with a 14 seconds margin over runner-up Castro and 24 seconds on 3rd-place finisher Oliveras.

Kevin McDowell of the United States finished 4th, 47 seconds back of the winner.

Birtwhistle was elated to finish one place better than his silver medal last year at the World Championship Grand Final. “After the silver medal last year in the juniors I was pretty devastated,” said Birtwhistle. “I wanted to redeem myself so to speak. I wanted nothing but gold today, so I am really glad to have it and take home the World Championship honor.”

Race recap

Seunghun Seo of Korea led out of the water in 16:11, 13 seconds ahead of Alexis Lepage of Canada and a huge crowd of 50 more men who broke 17 minutes for the one-loop 1500 meter swim.

Lepage and Gordon Benson of Great Britain led a pack of 30 men on the first lap of the 40-kilometer bike, followed 30 seconds later by a chase pack of 11. Halfway through the bike, the chase pack made up 10 seconds and by the bell lap the chasers merged with the leaders in a pack of 41 arriving in T2.

Starting the run, Birtwhistle, Benson, Lepage, and McDowell broke free from the massive pack and took the early lead. But by the end of the first lap, Lepage dropped off and Spaniards Castro and Oliveras joined the 5-man party at the front.

On the final 2.5 kilometer lap, Birtwhistle kicked to the front and left the rest of the leaders behind with a race-best 30:32 run. Castro’s 30:42 run gave him the silver and Oliveras’ 30:53 10k run brought him the bronze.

“The last lap was crazy,” said Castro. “It was attack, attack, attack. To come second, it’s amazing.”

McDowell fell off the podium to 4th with a 31:17 run and Benson closed with a 31:32 run to take 5th.

ITU World Championship Under 23 Men
Chicago, Illinois
September 17, 2015
S 1.5k / B 40k / R 10k

Results

1. Jacob Birtwhistle (AUS) 1:40:51
2. David Castro Fajardo (ESP) 1:41:05
3. Nan Oliveras (ESP) 1:41:15
4. Kevin McDowell (USA) 1:41:38
5. Gordon Benson (GBR) 1:41:56
6. Russell Pennock (CAN) 1:42:04
7. Juan Jose Andrade Figueroa (ECU) 1:42:09
8. Alexis Lepage (CAN) 1:42:18
9. Christophe De Keyser (BEL) 1:42:27
10. Schachar Sagiv (ISR) 1:42L31
14. Rodolphe Von Berg (USA) 1:42:43
30. Lukas Verzbicas (USA) 1:44:26
35. Eli Hemming (USA) 1:45:59
36. Hunter Lussi (USA) 1:46:26
40. Matthew McElroy (USA) 1:46:43