Coming off an Olympic silver medal at Rio, Jonathan Brownlee of Great Britain outran WTS series leader Mario Mola of Spain to win the sprint distance WTS Edmonton.

The win puts the younger Brownlee within 235 points of Mola in the race for the 2016 Columbia Threadneedle WTS Series crown to be decided at the Grand Final in two weeks at Cozumel.

Despite illness, Richard Murray of South Africa finished 3rd.

“This race hasn’t really changed much, it’s all about Mario in Cozumel now,” Brownlee told ITU media regarding how his finish affects the hunt for a World Championship title. “It’s a good result, but it’s all up to Cozumel. Hopefully my brother (Alistair, the 2-time Olympic gold medalist) will help on the swim and bike. But it’ll make a big difference.”

Richard Varga of Slovakia earned a big lead on the swim, followed by his training partner Brownlee, Aaron Royle of Australia, Matthew Sharpe of Canada and Matthew Roberts of Australia, while Murray was 20 seconds back and Mola languished 40 seconds off the pace at T1.

Of the top 5, Varga, Brownlee and Royle made a break on the first lap of the bike that gave the trio a solid lead. Halfway through the bike, Murray cut his deficit to 12 seconds while Mola bridged to the chase pack.

While the chase came within 6 seconds of the leading trio into T2, Mola made a slow transition and gave Brownlee the opportunity to create a big lead starting the run, which he increased to 18 seconds at the bell lap.

Powered by a race-best 14:47 split for the 5k run, Brownlee held on to finish in 51:39 with a 17 seconds margin of victory over Mola and 22 seconds on 3rd-place Murray.

“Unfortunately my swim wasn’t good today,” Mola told ITU media. “I had a bit of a fight there, but I tried to survive. I saw where I was and thought ‘we’re going to have to work,’ which we did. Then I found the energy to come second today.”

WTS Edmonton
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
September 4, 2016
S 750m / B 20k / R 5k

Results

Men

1. Jonathan Brownlee (GBR) 51:39
2. Mario Mola (ESP) 51:56
3. Richard Murray (RSA) 52:01
4. Grant Sheldon (GBR) 52:09
5. Thomas Bishop (GBR) 52:10
6. Steffen Justus (GER) 52:15
7. Adam Bowden (GBR) 52:19
8. Jonathan Zipf (GER) 52:22
9. Shachar Sagiv (ISR) 52:23
10. Joao Pereira (POR) 52:28