Darian Coninx of France took his first WTS victory in a finish line sprint in which he prevailed by 2 seconds over 5-time ITU World Champion Javier Gomez of Spain. In photo finish times of equal 1:50:38, Gustav Iden of Norway lost silver by inches and repeated his 3rd place finish at this venue last year.
“I am really happy,” Coninx told ITU media. “’Specially because after Abu Dhabi I was a bit disappointed. And when you start the season so badly is very hard to get over it. But I did, and during the race I was just thinking on enjoying it.”
Of equal note but on the unlucky side of the coin, three-time WTS World Champion and previous WTS 2019 points leader Mario Mola of Spain was trapped in a group which went off course on the swim and fell to 45th place, 1:12 behind the leader. Mola struggled mightily to recover but ended up 26th overall after a 7th-best 31:08 run.
Coninx’s fellow Frenchman Vincent Luis led the swim in 17:54 and, followed closely by fellow top swimmers Henri Schoeman of South Africa, Alois Knabl of Austria, Aaron Royle of Australia and Igor Polyanskiy of Russia, who were tracked trailed closely by Gomez and Jonathan Brownlee of Great Britain.
While Luis maintained his lead to the end of the swim, he failed to break away and started the bike with a mob on his tail. On the first of 10 laps of the bike leg, Luis was joined by 20 men. A front group including Luis, Gomez, Brownlee, Martin Van Riel of Belgium, Schoeman and Antonio Serrat Seoane took turns trying to drop a chase group which included last year’s Norwegian podium finishers Kristian Blummenfelt, Iden and Casper Stornes, and were joined with Fernando Alarza of Spain, Hayden Wilde of New Zealand and Bence Bicsák of Hungary to close the gap and form a huge clot of 33 riders.
On the final lap of the ride, Jonas Schomburg of Germany, Jorik Van Egdom of Netherlands, and Coninx made a small break into T2.
Starting the run, Schomburg took the first lead, chased closely by Luis, Blummenfelt, Gomez and Iden. Whereupon Coninx, refusing to be left behind, accelerated to join the four leaders. At this point, Blummenfelt and Luis dropped back.
Unwilling to wait for the final sprint, Gomez made a surge with 500 meters to go, but was corralled by Coninx with 200 meters left. Iden made a desperate effort to wrest the silver from Gomez, but fell to third at the line.
WTS Bermuda – Men
Hamilton, Bermuda
April 28, 2019
S 1.5k / B 40k / R 10k
Results
Men
1. Dorian Coninx (FRA) 1:50:36 S 18:04 T1 00:45 B 1:00:49 T2 00:22 R 30:38
2. Javier Gomez (ESP) 1:50:38 S 18:07 T1 00:41 B 1:00:52 T2 00:21 R 30:39
3. Gustav Iden (NOR) 1:50:38 S 18:52 T1 00:41 B 1:00:04 T2 00:23 R 30:41
4. Vincent Luis (FRA) 1:50:48 S 17:54 T1 00:42 B 1:01:00 T2 00:19 R 30:54
5. Kristian Blummenfelt (NOR) 1:51:04 S 18:28 T1 00:42 B 1:00:27 T2 00:27 R 31:02
6. Pierre Le Corre (FRA) 1:51:10 S 18:02 T1 00:41 B 1:00:56 T2 00:19 R 31:14
7. Bence Bicsák (HUN) 1:51:11 S 18:43 T1 00:39 B 1:00:31 T2 00:25 R 31:05
8. Joao Pereira (POR) 1:51:12 S 18:31 T1 00:39 B 1:00:31 T2 00:25 R 31:09
9. Fernando Alarza (ESP) 1:51:29 S 18:32 T1 00:41 B 1:00:30 T2 00:23 R 31:24
10. Léo Bergere (FRA) 1:51:47 T1 18:05 T1 00:42 B 1:00:50 T2 00:21 R 31:51
11. Jonathan Brownlee (GBR) 1:51:54 S 18:04 T1 00:39 B 1:00:58 T2 00:22 R 31:54
16. Tony Smoragiewicz (USA) 1:52:15 S 19:07 T1 00:40 B 59:55 T2 00:23 R 32:12
29. Morgan Pearson (USA) 1:54:12 S 18:10 T1 00:41 B 1:03:10 T2 00:27 R 31:47
32. Matthew McElroy (USA) 1:55:01 S 19:09 T1 00:40 B 1:02:08 T2 00:20 R 32:45
35. William Huffman (USA) 1:55:47 S 18:04 T1 00:40 B 1:40:36 T2 00:23 R 33:24
