Four-time ITU World Champion and Olympic silver medalist Javier Gomez of Spain won the ITU World Olympic Qualifying Event in sunny Rio de Janeiro by a comfortable margin over Vincent Luis of France, while Richard Murray of South Africa blazed back from a 1:45 deficit with a race-best run to take 3rd place.

Gomez, who has won the XTERRA World Championship and the Ironman 70.3 Worlds in recent years, also gained a small measure of revenge over the man who denied him gold at the London Olympics. After finishing a close 6th to Gomez’s 5th in a lead pack of eight on the bike in Rio, Alistair Brownlee faded to 10th on the run in Rio’s heat. In addition, Gomez also gained redemption for his recent finish line sprint loss to Luis at the Hamburg round of the WTS series.

On this day, the 20-degree steep hill in the middle of the urban Rio bike course provided a test that allowed a pack of eight men to escape with a 1 minute 20 seconds lead on a chase pack that included very dangerous runners Murray and Mario Mola of Spain.

Protected from the inevitable assault of the two runners, Gomez and Luis were left to duke it out on even terms after expending the energy required to create their front pack lead. Perhaps benefiting from the twice longer run than he and Luis faced in Hamburg, Gomez edged away on the final lap, finishing with a 7th-fastest 31:35 run that was better than the Frenchman could muster.

Gomez finished in in 1:48:26 with a 17 seconds margin on Luis and 35 seconds faster than Murray, who closed with a race-best 30:30 10k run that left him 31 seconds ahead of 4th-place finisher David Hauss of France, who posted a 2nd-fastest 30:56 run.

“It feels great to have my qualification for Rio,” said Gomez. “I enjoyed racing the course, it was a tough race but I felt quite good. I was saving some energy for the last two laps of the run because I am training for World Championships, so it was nice to win. I wouldn’t say it was easy, but it was controlled so I am really happy.”

Mola, who often posts a race-best run, was not at his best and his 31:05 4th-best run split brought him home 7th.

“I don’t think it has sunk in yet, I know that is such a cliché thing to say, but you know at the start of the day I had to motivate myself because it was going to be difficult to get,” said Murray. “The swim was real rough, I came up quite far back, but even so the run was one of my best today, so overall in the end I am happy with the way things turned out.”

While three U.S. men gave strong performances, none made a top 8 finish that would have guaranteed an Olympic slot.

Tommy Zaferes, who was granted a last-minute start in Rio, made the most of his opportunity as his tied-for-fastest 17:52 swim opened up a spot in the lead pack breakaway. Zaferes proved he belonged by taking his turns at the front and seamlessly working with the group up to T2. Fueled by ambition, Zaferes was first on to the run, then held on to 5th place through 5k and was 8th just before the end of the 3rd run lap. Out of gas after rolling the dice, Zaferes fell back to 27th and surrendered the honor of top American finishers to Gregory Billington, 16th, and Joe Maloy, 17th.

“Actually it worked exactly how I thought it would,” said Zaferes. “I went for it on the run in the first two laps, and then once I was out of the top eight I shut it down because of my past history with the heat. I just did my thing to get the best result on the run, and I just didn't have it the last 5k.”

“Obviously the goal coming in was top eight,” said Billington, “because that would get me (an Olympic) spot. It’s a deep American field right now, and there are a lot of guys I’m racing against to be top American, but when you go into a race, that’s never your goal. Your goal is to compete on an international level.”

Most unfortunate for the U.S. men, 2008 Olympian Jarrod Shoemaker was unable to start due to a broken collarbone he suffered when he crashed on his final ride of the bike course on Saturday afternoon.

ITU World Olympic Qualification Event
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
August 2, 2015
S 1.5k / B 40k / R 10k

Results

Elite Men

1. Javier Gomez (ESP) 1:48:26
2. Vincent Luis (FRA) 1:48:40
3. Richard Murray (RSA) 1:49:01
4. David Hauss (FRA) 1:49:32
5. Dmitry Polyanskiy (RUS) 1:49:32
6. Aaron Royle (AUS) 1:49:34
7. Mario Mola (ESP) 1:49:37
8. Igor Polyanskiy (RUS) 1:49:41
9. Joao Silva (POR) 1:49:46
10. Alistair Brownlee (GBR) 1:49:54
15. Gregory Billington (USA) 1:50:26
16. Joe Maloy (USA) 1:50:36
27. Tommy Zaferes (USA) 1:51:27
41. Hunter Kemper (USA) 1:52:16
58. Ben Kanute (USA) 1:56:14
60. Kevin McDowell (USA) 1:57:18.