Defending champion Javier Gomez overcame a crash on the bike and a good sized gap at the beginning of the run to win the 2011 Dextro Energy ITU World Championship Series race in Sydney, Australia.
The race
Ivan Vasiliev set the pace during the swim in the Farm Cove of the Sydney Harbour and also managed to be first out of the water, but the whole men's field was virtually still together at that point.
Early on in the bike a group of eight developed that had the Brownlee brothers, Laurent Vidal and David Hauss among them. Javier Gomez was not in that group but managed to jump across, but soon after another good sized group closed the gap. Rain started to fall on the course and combined with some aggressive riding by the Brownlees that front group started to split up again. Various Pros jumped to front of the race including Matt Chrabot and David Hauss but 20k into the race the front group was almost 50 athletes strong. Chrabot though lost contact with the lead after crashing twice. Late in the bike Gomez also crashed and was down 15 seconds with 8k to go but managed to get back to the end of the lead group. 41 men reached T2 within 15 seconds of each other.
The Brownlees quickly set the pace on the run and only Hauss managed to stay with them. Further back Gomez was cruising through the field in hot pursuit of the leaders. Brendan Sexton and Sven Riederer started to close the gap to the trio up front and by that time Gomez had moved himself into 6th position with an incredible effort and shortly after was in that lead group. Tim Don also pushed himself hard and with less than 4k to go he was at the head of the race. Shortly after Alistair Brownlee slipped in a corner and fell fairly hard and that is about the time when Don's elastic finally snapped. That left 5 athletes to contend for the title. A hard push by Gomez with 2k to go really split that group apart and soon he was alone in the lead. Gomez held on for the win with Jonathan Brownlee in second and Sven Riederer in third.
Dextro Energy ITU World Championship Series Sydney
Sydney, Australia / April 10, 2011
1.5k swim / 40k bike /10k run
Results
1. Javier Gomez (ESP) 1:50:22
2. Jonathan Brownlee (GBR) 1:50:29
3. Sven Riederer (SUI) 1:50:34
4. Brendan Sexton (AUS) 1:50:41
5. David Hauss (FRA) 1:50:49
6. Tim Don (GBR) 1:50:58
7. Jonathan Zipf (GER) 1:51:04
8. Joao Silva (POR) 1:51:18
9. William Clarke (GBR) 1:51:20
10. Dmitry Polyansky (RUS) 1:51:27
