The 2012 Olympic Champion Alistair Brownlee dominated the field at the ITU Omegawave World Triathlon Series event in San Diego and stormed to another fine win. Richard Murray and Joao Silva rounded out the podium.
A group of nine led by Tommy Zafares managed to gain a small advantage coming out of the water and pushed by Alistair Brownlee they established a 60 second advantage early on the bike. A hard chase though by a bigger group led by Jan Frodeno, Richard Murray and Clark Ellice brought those early leaders back by the halfway point of the bike segment. Around that time Brownlee tried to break away but he did not gain a big advantage and was soon reeled in again. He later on sounded frustrated that the folks in that early breakaway were unwilling to work hard to stay away. Toward the end of the bike section Denis Vasiliev, Andrey Bryukhankov and Jesus Gomar established about a 10 second advantage and held it all the way to the bike-run transition, but that was not enough of a lead with so many fast runners close behind.
Once on the run it did indeed not take very long for Brownlee to charge into the lead and he had Joao Silva right on his heels. Behind them Richard Murray moved into third position, but there was no sight of Javier Gomez who seemed to struggling today. Brownlee then got rid of Silva and Murray then reeled in the Portuguese athlete. Shortly after that Jan Frodeno dropped out and limped away from the course and around that time Murray had managed to distance Silva. A group of 5 meanwhile that contained Javier Gomez, Steffen Justus and Mario Mola ran in 4th through 8th position 35 seconds behind the leader and everybody else was too far behind to mount any challenge. It was all Brownlee up front with an incredible display of speed and power and a very fast 29:30 closing run. The Olympic champion stormed to the win in 1:47:16 with Murray and Silva rounding out the podium 22 and 36 seconds later.
"I purposely didn't go too fast in the first kilometer of the run. I found my skin in the first lap, felt more comfortable and pushed on a bit. I didn't know if I had that ability to really push on. ... I couldn't believe there was no one there after 1,500 meters," said Brownlee. "It was a massive surprise. I'm just pleased that's over with now. Whatever the outcome was, if I was second, third or fourth, it was just nice to be back racing after last year and this winter."
Murray seemed happy with his runner-up spot and said "I like [the course] because the run is different. It's only three laps; I think it's normally four laps ... it makes it that much difficult. Once you've done two laps the last one really, really hurts."
Silva's 3rd place means he is now leading the 2013 ITU World Triathlon Series and Mario Mola's 5th place finish today puts him in 2nd position in the series. Javier Gomez dropped down to 3rd after his 8th place finish.
American Matt Chrabot who finished in 14th position earned himself the US Champion title and seemed pleased to now have a second title.
"Halfway through the run I really noticed the spectators were chanting USA, USA, so I just kind of used that to fuel me through the rest of the race to the finish line. It's my second national title and it feels good," said Chrabot.
ITU Omegawave Word Triathlon Series San Diego
San Diego, CA / April 20, 2013
1.5k swim / 40k bike / 10k run
Top men
1. Alistair Brownlee (GBR) 1:47:16
2. Richard Murray (RSA) 1:47:38
3. Joao Silva (POR) 1:47:52
4. Steffen Justus (GER) 1:48:14
5. Mario Mola (ESP) 1:48:18
6. Adam Bowden (GBR) 1:48:22
7. Dmitry Polyanskiy (RUS) 1:48:28
8. Javier Gomez (ESP) 1:48:38
9. Sven Riederer (SUI) 1:48:47
10. David McNamee (GBR) 1:48:54
14. Matt Chrabot (USA)
