Rodrigo Gonzalez of Mexico took part in a two-man bike breakaway to take the victory at the Chengdu World Cup Saturday.

Gonzalez and Kohei Tsubaki of Japan charged ahead of a large pack on the second of 6 laps on the bike leg, then finished with a race-best 55:13 bike split to establish a 1:13 lead at T2. While Tsubaki fell back to 31st, Gonzalez held on with a 16th-best 31:49 run split to finish in 1:49:03 with a 26 seconds margin of victory over Rostyslav Pevtsov of Azerbaijan and 30 seconds on 3rd-place finisher Marten Van Riel of Belgium.

The victory was the first ITU podium for Gonzalez, topping his previous World Cup best 4th place at Edmonton in 2013.

“This is very important, a very happy moment for me in my life,” said Gonzalez. “I knew it was a matter of time to get this podium and hopefully at the top. I am very happy especially now with the pressure of Olympic qualification, this result recovers a third spot for my country and I think it is a matter of keeping it for the next three races and racing smartly.”

Van Riel led the swim with a 19:48 split which gave him a narrow margin over Zheng Xu of China, 3 seconds over Vladimir Turbaevskiy of Russia, 5 seconds over Ji Hwan Kim of Korea and 10 seconds over Luke Willian of Australia and Felipe Barraza of Chile.

For the first lap of the bike leg, eight men took a brief lead but were caught quickly by the main group. On lap two, Gonzalez and Kohei Tsubaki of Japan took a surged to the front and kept going.

“I just took the risk today and with Tsubaki we rode so strongly and looked to establish a big lead,” Gonzalez told ITU media. ”Then on the run I was very comfortable and enjoyed the finish.”

Pevtsov left the rest of the chasers behind with a race-best 30:56 run split that brought him the silver by 4 seconds over Van Riel, who ran 31:02 to stave off 4th-place Matthew Baker of Australia by 1 second and 5th-place Gonzalo Raul Tellechea of Argentina by 2 seconds.

Pevtsov repeated his silver medal performance at Chengdu last year and added to his 4th place at Mooloolaba and 3rd at New Plymouth in 2016.

“I am happy again to be on the podium and my form continues to be good,” said Pevtsov. “I felt strong today and enjoy Chengdu, my favorite race now.”

Chengdu World Cup
Jintang, China
April 16, 2016
S 1.5k / B 40k / R 10k

Results

Elite men

1. Rodrigo Gonzalez (MEX) 1:49:03
2. Rostyslav Pevtsov (AZE) 1:49:29
3. Marten Van Riel (BEL) 1:49:33
4. Matthew Baker (AUS) 1:49:34
5. Gonzalo Raul Tellechea (ARG) 1:49:35
6. Luke Willian (AUS) 1:49:37
7. Ron Darmon (ISR) 1:49:39
8. Thomas Springer (AUT) 1:49:41
9. Raphael Montoya (FRA) 1:49:49
10. Aurélien Lescure (TUR) 1:49:53
19. Jason West (USA) 1:50:34
40. Eli Hemming (USA) 1:52:38