Alistair Brownlee put on a dominating performance in Beijing and grabbed the 2011 Dextro Energy ITU World Championship title. Sven Riederer from Switzerland finished second on the day but third placed Jonathan Brownlee grabbed the runner-up spot in the series.
Jonathan Brownlee and Alistair Brownlee were first and second out of the water of the Shisanling reservoir, with Russians Ivan Vasiliev and Alexander Bryukhankov right there too.
On the rainy bike course a group of 39 athletes established at the front with most of the key contenders present there. Among those who were surprisingly not there was Olympic Champion Jan Frodeno from Germany and he pulled out of the race relatively early. Chris McCormack also raced in Beijing, but he was in a chase pack of about 15 athletes that was about a minute down. The chasers worked hard to reel in the leaders, and got it down as close to 45 seconds, but in the end it as back to over a minute. With about 7.5k to go a group of five slipped away from the front pack and both Brownlees were present, but that move did not last very long. Towards the end though the leaders had lost 3 athletes, among them Jarrod Shoemaker who retired, and the group was down to 36.
The Brownlees immediately moved to the front of the run and quickly established a gap. Javier Gomez, Sven Riederer and Alexander Bryukhankov were running hard in 3rd through 5th positions, but saw the 2 Brits disappearing up the road. Eventually Alistair Brownlee pulled away from his younger brother and Jonathan actually started to drop back to the chasers who were led by David Hauss at that time. Alistair stormed to a convincing win and had plenty time to celebrate his World Championship title in the finishing straight. Sven Riederer finished second and a gritty Jonathan Brownlee held on to finish third.
"When I woke up this morning and saw it was cold and wet, I just thought, 'yes,'" said Alistair Brownlee, who has now won the finals three years in a row. "On the run, we were running and we got away and it was just like running through treacle today. Then I knew (Jonny) wasn't really great, you realize that when you train together every day. I wanted to keep him with me but I realized I should probably go on that last lap. So it was just great to cross the line really."
Dextro Energy ITU World Championship Finals
Beijing, China / September 10, 2011
1.5k swim / 40k bike / 10k run
Top 10 men
1. Alistair Brownlee (GBR) 1:48:07
2. Sven Riederer (SUI) 1:48:15
3. Jonathan Brownlee (GBR) 1:48:18
4. Dmitry Polyansky (RUS) 1:48:20
5. Laurent Vidal (FRA) 1:48:24
6. Javier Gomez (ESP) 1:48:27
7. David Hauss (FRA) 1:48:36
8. Vincent Luis (FRA) 1:48:44
9. Maik Petzold (GER) 1:48:47
10. Ivan Rana (ESP) 1:48:51
Final Standings - 2011 ITU Triathlon World Championships
Elite Men
1. Alistair Brownlee (4285 points)
2. Jonathan Brownlee (3992 points)
3. Javier Gomez (3671 points)
4. Sven Riederer (3306 points)
5. Alexander Brukhankov (3208 points)
6. David Hauss (3157 points)
7. Laurent Vidal (2844 points)
8. Dmitry Polyanskiy (2764 points)
9. Will Clarke (2495 points)
10. Brad Kahlefeldt (2217 points)
