Tamara Gorman of the United States won the Junior Women's, Dorian Coninx of France won the Junior Men's, Charlotte McShane of Australia won the Under 23 Women's and Pierre Le Corre of France won the Under 23 Men's titles in ITU World Championship action Thursday in London.

USA's Gorman wins Junior Women

Rapid City, South Dakota's Tamara Gorman took the Junior Women's gold with an at-the-front performance on a rainy, cold day at the ITU World Championship in London Thursday.

Gorman bettered her bronze medal at last year's Junior Women's ITU Worlds in Auckland, New Zealand by two places. She started with a tied-for-race-best 19:18 swim, followed by a lead pack 29:28 bike split and put the race away with a dominating 17:00 5k run that brought her to the finish in 57:08 with a 23 seconds margin of victory over runner-up Georgia Taylor-Brown of Great Britain and 26 seconds over 3rd-place Laura Lindemann of Germany.

"The run was awesome," said Gorman, who also won the USA Triathlon Junior Women's Nationals and the Pan American Games Junior Women's title in South America earlier this year. "I just felt awesome coming off the bike. I mean, I had to try really hard on the bike. It was wet, we had to be careful."

While Gorman took control on the run, the duel was fierce for the silver and bronze.
Australia's Jaz Hedgeland started right after Gorman in T2, followed by Japan's Sumire Ohara and Germany's Laira Lindemann. Great Britain's Georgia Taylor-Brown started right behind the chasing trio, but fell back to 6th, 20 seconds behind the group after the first of 3 laps on the run. Once warmed up, Taylor-Brown unleashed a surge that produced a second-best 17:19 run that vaulted her past everyone but Gorman to take the silver.

“I got out of transition pretty much last," said Taylor-Brown. "I couldn’t get in my shoes I was so cold. From there I think I relaxed a bit too much and left it to the last 800 and had to sprint from there. It’s great to be able to race on the Olympic course.”

ITU World Championship
London, England
September 12, 2013

Junior Women
S 750 m / B 20k / R 5k

1. Tamara Gorman (USA) 57:08
2. Georgia Taylor-Brown (GBR) 57:31
3. Laura Lindemann (GER) 57:34
4. Jaz Hedgeland (AUS) 57:39
5. Sumire Ohara (JPN) 57:51
33. Devon Dabney (USA) 1:00:55
47. Stephanie Jenks (USA) 1:02:17

Coninx of France sprints to Junior Men's title

Dorian Coninx of France backed up his 2013 Junior Men's European title with a thrilling finish line surge to hold off a furious charge by Great Britain's Marc Austin and Grant Sheldon to win the ITU Junior Men's World Championship gold.

All three medalists ran sub-15 minute 5ks in their epic dash to the line -- Coninx and Sheldon posting 14:52 splits and Austin am also-excellent 14:56.

The race started with a wetsuit swim in the cold waters of the Serpentine inside Hyde Park - the site of the 2012 Olympics. The entire 84-man field finished within 30 seconds of swim leader Dorian Coninx. While Coninx, Austin and Sheldon tried to breakaway, the Netherlands' Jorik Van Egdom put on a dazzling two-wheeled show coming from 42 seconds behind off the swim and leading two chase packs up to the leaders at T2. By the end of the bike, 50 men arrived at T2 within 14 seconds.

Soon, the top four men from the European Championships - Coninx, Austin, Raphael Montoya of France and the UK's Gordon Benson -- plus Oceania Champion Jacob Birtwhistle and Van Egdom, surged into the lead. On the penultimate lap, Edgom was the first to drop, followed by Birtwistle. Coninx took charge on the final kilometer to win by 30 meters while Austin edged Sheldon by one second to take the silver.
Austin said he was thrilled to podium and do well with the two teammates he’s been training with for years. "When you go and see all the guys on the podium, I’m just happy I get to go back to the hotel with a medal,” said Austin. "Me and Grant and Gordon (Benson) have been training together for a few years, It’s a really strong set up. We’ve got a really strong team.”\
Tony Smoragiewicz (Rapid City, S.D.) missed the lead pack out of the water and rode in the second chase pack on the bike, but posted a 15:05 run split, the fourth fastest in the field to finish 42nd.

Junior Men
S 750m / B 20k / R 5k

Results

1. Dorian Coninx (FRA) 51:57
2. Marc Austin (GBR) 52:00
3. Grant Sheldon (GBR) 52:01
4. Raphael Montoya (FRA) 52:19
5. Gordon Benson (GBR) 52:25
17. Brent Demarest (USA) 52:53
42. Tony Smoragiewicz (USA) 53:59

Australia's McShane outsprints Canadians Pennock and Kretz for U23 gold

Charlotte McShane of Australia dug deepest to prevail in a 4-woman dash to the finish and cop the gold by a margin of 1 second at the Under 23 Women's race at the ITU World Championship in London.

“I’ve been training really well for the last few years but haven’t quite put it into performance, so I just cannot believe I managed to do it today,” McShane told ITU media. “I guess that’s the most special thing to me, is some of the names that have won this before and that’s when it really sinks in.”

McShane startted her day 1:05 behind Great Britain's swim-specialist Olympian Lucy Hall and 42 seconds behind chief rival Ellen Pennock of Canada and tied with another Canadian, Amelie Kretz. While Hall zoomed ahead, Natalie Van Coevorden of Australia, Sara Vilic of Austria and Pennock were 30 seconds back.

On the second lap of the bike, Pennock crashed on the rain-slick roads of Hyde Park -- a déjà vu experience reminiscent of her two crashes at the her first ITU junior worlds. " I actually crashed twice and so I started to get a little down, ‘Oh no, not again!’ but luckily it was fine," said Pennock. "I had enough time out of the water so I was able to get with the second pack."

After Pennock crashed, the top chasers fell back into a 17-woman pack including McShane, Kretz, Under 23 Women's 2012 bronze medalist Joanna Brown of Canada and and Emmie Charayron of France. On the 5th lap of the bike leg, the chase group got in sync and chopped 20 seconds off Hall's lead. By the end of the 8-lap bike, the chasers caught Hall and 10 women took off together leading the run.

By the final lap of the run, McShane and Pennock dropped the rest. At the final meters of the blue carpet, McShane lunged and won by a second, with Kretz another two seconds back in 3rd.

The podium finishers look like promising contenders when they graduate to the elite ranks as their 10k run times were an outstanding 34:39 for Pennock, 34:40 for McShane and 34:41 for Kretz.

Under23 Women
S 1.5k / B 49k / R 10k

Results

1. Charlotte McShane (AUS) 1:55:38
2. Ellen Pennock (CAN) 1:55:39
3. Amelie Kretz (CAN) 1:55:41
4. Hanna Philippin (GER) 1:55:43
5. Joanna Brown (CAN) 1:55:49
22. Chelsea Burns (USA) 2:00:08
27. Erin Jones (USA) 2:02:35

Pierre Le Corre wins Under 23 Men's World crown

Pierre Le Corre of France won the Under 23 Men's gold at the ITU World Championship in a time of 1:42:47, edging runner-up Fernando Alarza of Spain by 4 seconds and 3rd place Declan Wilson of Australia by 8 seconds.

Under 23 Men
S 1.5k / B 40l / R 10k

Results

1. Pierre Le Corre (FRA) 1:42:47
2. Fernando Alarza (ESP) 1:42:51
3. Declan Wilson (AUS) 1:42:55
4. Igor Polyanskiy (RUS) 1:43:16
5. Matthias Steinwandter (ITA) 1:43:27
22. William Huffman (USA) 1:45:14
28. Ben Kanute (USA) 1:46:02