Vincent Luis of France out-sprinted defending World Champion Javier Gomez to win the Hamburg round of the World Triathlon Series by 4 seconds.
“It was my first victory in the WTS and the first for the French team,” said Luis. “It is really good for me but really it is good for the French. “I was really confident. I tried to attack him (Gomez), but then he attacked me. So I had to wait until the sprint to set a fast tempo to make sure he wouldn’t attack me before the finish.”
“On the run, I did not have a good day, I just tried to hang on,” said Gomez. “I tried a couple of times but I wasn't feeling great and I knew Vincent was really fast in the last 200 meters. I tried to go at 1 kilometer to go, but he kept up and smashed me in the end.”
After a sub-par swim and a second pack bike split that left him in 19th place, 50 seconds behind the leader at T2, Mario Mola of Spain unleashed the fastest-ever WTS 5k run of 13:55 to finish on the final spot of the podium, 26 seconds behind the winner. The fastest previous WTS 5k run split was 13:59 at Stockholm in 2012.
Mola said, “I was in a tough position at the beginning of the run, but you have to believe. I have been training very hard for the last couple weeks so I gave everything I had today to become third so I am very happy and pleased with that.”
In contrast, Luis ran 14:17 and Gomez 14:21.
With brothers Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee of Great Britain both taking the weekend off, Gomez solidified his hold on first place in the Columbia Threadneedle WTS rankings. Gomez leads with 3705 points, followed by Mola (3374), Fernando Alarza of Spain (2961), Luis (2910), Richard Murray (2857), Alistair Brownlee (2340), Ryan Bailie of Australia (2305) and Jonathan Brownlee (2186).
SWIM
Richard Varga of Slovakia led the swim in 9:02, one second ahead of Anthony Pujades of France, 5 seconds ahead of Gomez and Aurelien Raphael of France, and six seconds ahead of Tommy Zaferes of the U.S. Mola, who is second in WTS season points, set himself up for a tough day with a 9:32 swim, as did potential contender Richard Murray of South Africa who emerged one second later.
BIKE
After one lap of the bike leg, Gomez led a lead group of 11, 26 seconds ahead of a large chase group that included Mola and Murray, who suffered a 10-seconds penalty for bad housekeeping - a water bottle out of his basket - in T1. By the second lap, Luis led a 9-man pack that included Pujades, Dorian Coninx of France, Zaferes, Henri Schoeman of South Africa, Gomez, Justus Nieschlag of Germany, Aaron Royle of Australia, and Varga. Led by Mola and Murray, the chase pack stood 30 seconds down.
Nieschlag led into T2, followed in short order by Gomez, Luis, Zaferes, Schoeman, Royle, Pujades, Coninx and Varga. Murray, Mola and Joao Pereira of Portugal were 49 and 50 seconds arrears.
Run
Gomez and Luis left the rest of the top 9 behind, running closely together until the finish, while Mola was slicing through the pack on a WTS 5k run-record pace. With a few hundred meters to go, Luis used his famed sprint to gap Gomez and hit the finish in 51:54 with a 4 second margin on Gomez and 26 seconds on fleet-footed 3rd-place finisher Mola.
WTS Hamburg
Hamburg, Germany
July 18, 2015
S 750m / B 20k / R 5k
Results
Elite Men
1. Vincent Luis (FRA) 51:54
2. Javier Gomez (ESP) 51:58
3. Mario Mola (ESP) 52:20
4. Dorian Coninx (FRA) 52:30
5. Aaron Royle (AUS) 52:37
6. Henri Schoeman (RSA) 52:40
7. Anthony Pujades (FRA) 52:45
8. Richard Varga (SVK) 52:47
9. Joao Pereira (POR) 52:50
10. Justus Nieschlag (GER) 52:52
11. Richard Murray (RSA) 52:56
24. Tommy Zaferes (USA) 53:21
39. Eric Lagerstrom (USA) 54:13
42. Ben Kanute (USA) 53:17
56. Sean Jefferson (USA) 55:53
Images © Karsten Täschner / slowtwitch.com
