Joao Silva from Portugal ran away from Spaniard Javier Gomez late in the race to take the win at the 2012 ITU Yokohama WTS event and thus successfully defended his title from 2011. Dmitry Polyanskiy from Russia finished third in what proved to be a thrilling finale.
As expected Richard Varga led the men out of the water but had several men including Javier Gomez hot on his heels.
A group of 7 athletes that contained Varga and Gomez had a small advantage over a bunch that contained 10 athletes and while efforts were clearly made to stay away, it didn't take very long for them to merge. Eventually the group grew to about 30 athletes and while a few attempts were made to break the stalemate, nothing stuck until Yuichi Hosoda and Kris Gemmell broke away late during the bike and managed to get 50 seconds on the pack into T2. Coincidentally that was the exact number of seconds required for them to grab the Specialized bike prime that had one grown to a very nice $20,000.
Hosoda looked good leaving transition, but Gemmell appeared to be in difficulty. A bit further back Javier Gomez was flying and it did not take him very long to charge into the lead. Dmitry Polyanskiy and Joao Silva were running in second and third about 8 seconds behind the Spaniard, but everyone else had already lost enough time that they appeared to be out of the medals. Silva clawed his way back up to Gomez and so did Polyanskiy, but another surge by Gomez with about 2k to go put the Russian into difficulty. Silva then countered and quickly got a gap on Gomez and from there stormed to the win in Yokohama. Gomez crossed the line in second and Polyanskiy hung on to third.
All eyes now will be on the Grand Final in Auckland, NZ to see if Javier Gomez can snag the title from current WTS leader Jonathan Brownlee.
ITU Yokohama WTS
Yokohama, Japan / September 29, 2012
1.5k swim / 40k bike / 10k run
Top men
1. Joao Silva (POR) 1:48:44
2. Javier Gomez (ESP) 1:48:58
3. Dmitry Polyanskiy (RUS) 1:49:11
4. Laurent Vidal (FRA) 1:49:23
5. David Hauss (FRA) 1:49:44
6. Adam Bowden (GBR) 1:49:56
7. Tony Moulai (FRA) 1:50:11
8. David McNamee (GBR) 1:50:18
9. Richard Murray (RSA) 1:50:23
10. Hirokatsu Tayama (JAP) 1:50:27
