Alistair Brownlee took a superb win at the Dextro Energy WCS race in Madrid and his younger brother Jonathan grabbed second place after a successful break on the bike. Season opening WCS Sydney winner Javier Gomez rounded out the podium.
After a false start caused by a horn in the audience the field in Madrid launched off the pontoon without any further incident to swim the first of the two 750 meter swim laps. Dmitry Polyansky led the bunch out of the water after the first loop and he was also first when they finished the swim.
The bike course in Madrid is known to be very hard and very early on a front group of 11 established that contained Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee, Javier Gomez, Frederic Belaubre, Aurelien Raphael, Maik Petzold, James Elvery, Dmitry Polyansky, Alexander Bryukhankov, Ivan Vasiliev and Alessandro Fabian. They were chased by a group of three that contained Jan Frodeno and Ivan Rana, but only Frodeno managed to connect to that lead bunch. From there the now 12 strong front group started to steadily pull away and with so many strong athletes present in that group it looked like the podium and maybe the complete top ten might be present here. For Courtney Atkinson, Brad Kahlefeldt, Simon Whitfield and all other chasers that wasn't something they wanted to see happen and they kept pushing the pace, but the leaders were working like a well-oiled machine. By the time the front group reached the bike-run transition they had 1:45 over the chasing bunch and that was enormous, especially with so many fast runners present.
The Brownlee brothers set a wicked pace on the run right away and pulled away from that lead group and Gomez who was running in third place looked like he was struggling a bit. Halfway through the run the lead of the brothers was up to 30 seconds and there was no sign of them slowing down. With 2.5k to go Alistair pulled away from his younger brother and stormed but slowed down just before the finish line to wait for Jonathan, but crossed the line in first place for the third time here in Madrid in as many attempts. For a while it looked like Bryukhankov might be challenging Gomez for the final podium spot, but the defending series champion held on to third place.
"He (Jonathan) put in a bit of a surge and I put in a bit of a surge and then we kind of relaxed back into our pace and that was that," said Alistair Brownlee.
"The Brownlees were just on a different level on the run, so I couldn't do too much," said Gomez who now leads the Dextro Energy WCS series by a narrow margin. "I tried on the first lap, I tried to follow them but I know that was not my pace, I was waiting to see if they would slow down, but they didn't, they went faster and they smashed me."
Dextro Energy WCS Madrid
Madrid, Spain / June 4, 2011
1.5k swim / 40k bike / 10k run
Top men
1. Alistair Brownlee (GBR) 1:51:06
2. Jonathan Brownlee (GBR) 1:51:09
3. Javier Gomez (ESP) 1:51:51
4. Alexander Bryukhankov (RUS) 1:52:02
5. Dmitry Polyansky (RUS) 1:52:30
6. Jan Frodeno (GER) 1:52:43
7. Frederic Belaubre (FRA) 1:52:45
8. Aurelien Raphael (FRA) 1:52:49
9. Maik Petzold (GER) 1:53:01
10. Steffen Justus (GER) 1:53:04
Dexto Energy WCS Triathlon Series
1. Javier Gomez (ESP) 1485
2. Jonathan Brownlee (GBR) 1480
3. Dmitry Polyansky (RUS) 983
4. David Hauss (FRA) 953
5. Alexander Brukhankov (RUS) 923
6. Alistair Brownlee (GBR) 890
