The Mixed Relay Season Starts With Lots of Drama in Abu Dhabi

A dramatic come-from-behind win. A crash that took out three of the leading teams. A four-way duel for the final two medals. Welcome to the excitement of mixed relay racing. The Mixed Relay Series Abu Dhabi provided lots of excitement today, despite the fact that in the grand scheme of things, there really wasn’t a lot riding on the result. There’s literally years before the Olympic qualifying process will begin, and there’s not much glory to be gained with an early season mixed relay podium. Even Germany, the reigning Olympic mixed relay champions, didn’t put any of the athletes who won gold for them in Paris on their team. The Germans still managed to come away with the win after a crazy 90 minutes of racing, though. Here’s how things played out:

First Leg

Belgium’s Jolien Vermeylen proved to be the strongest of the 11 athletes who took off for the first leg, managing to move through pretty much the entire field after coming out of the second transition at the back. (After things separated a bit through the swim and the early part of the bike, the entire field bunched together to hit the second transition together.) Initially American Taylor Spivey and Spain’s Anna Godoy looked like they would finish the run with the Belgian, but a late surge saw Vermeylan get ahead to lead the Spanish team by a second and the Americans by eight. The big shock after the first leg of the race was that Germany’s Selina Klamt would tag off 43 seconds back.

Penalties and a Crash in Leg 2

As a lead group of five started the bike for the second leg we learned that there were two 10-second “swim behaviour” penalties handed out to Portugal (Vasco Vilaca) and Spain (Cantero del Campo). Then, to add to the drama, Switzerland’s Simon Westermann went down towards the end of the first lap of the bike, taking Great Britain’s Max Stapley and Vilaca out with him. Del Campo was the quickest of the lead five to get back up, with the Netherlands’ Mitch Kolkman next to get back onto the bike. The crash would end the races for the teams from Switzerland, Great Britain and Portugal, though.

When Kolkman managed to catch the Spaniard he flew right by and would open up a gap of 11 seconds as he started the run. Team USA’s John Reed kept his team in third, but only had a few seconds on Italy and Belgium. Those three were well back of the lead, though, and as Cantero flew through the run to pass Kolkman, he would tag off to Miriam Casillas with a lead of nine seconds over the Netherlands. The gap was 17 seconds to Belgium and 30 seconds to the Americans by the end of the second leg. Germany would send off Tanja Neubert 53 seconds down.

Neubert Flies Through the Third Leg

At the end of the swim it was Casillas and the Netherlands’ Luna de Bruin who set off with a lead of 13 seconds on American Ericka Ackerlund, with Belgium another second down. Neubert jumped on her bike 34 seconds behind and had some company on the bike as she was just a few seconds behind Japan and Ireland. Ackerland and de Bruin worked well together, but couldn’t make up any time on the pair ahead through the first loop. Neubert powered the third group, which continued to gain time on the leaders, dropping the gap to 25 seconds halfway through the second of two loops on the bike. Neubert’s group would eventually catch the American and Belgian teams, and as they started the run the gap was down to 10 seconds.

Casillas would pull clear of de Bruin very quickly, but served the 10-second penalty, and suddenly it was Neubert, who had flown through the field, in the lead. Casillas reentered the race in third, but quickly passed Ackerlund to put Spain into second place.

Neubert would continue to pull away, eventually tagging off to Henry Graf with a nine second lead over the American team which was anchored by Olympic silver medalist Morgan Pearson. Italy would hit the water in third, 16 seconds down, with Spain starting the swim another three seconds behind.

Germany Holds On

Graf remained well clear during the swim, hitting his first transition 13 seconds ahead of Pearson, with Italy’s Euan De Nigro and Spain’s Robert Sanchez 19 seconds down. De Nigro and Sanchez quickly joined Pearson to create a group of three chasing the German. Instead of the group catching up, though, they were joined by the Netherlands’ Gjalt Panjer. Once the group grew to four the charge to try and catch the Germans stopped, and things became more tactical. That meant that by the start of the final 1,600 m leg the fast-running Graf was 35 seconds up.

Graf cruised through the run, leaving four teams to chase the other two medals. De Nigro and Pearson pulled clear almost immediately, making it a race between Italy and the USA for silver. Pearson let the Italian lead the way early, but started to ramp up the effort towards the end of the first lap. Pearson gained 13 seconds on Graf, but was still 22 seconds back with just over 800 m of running to go.

The German broke the tape in 1:32:05, with Pearson bringing the Americans home in 1:32:21 for second and De Nigro helping the Italians round out the podium in 1:32:24. Spain (1:32:38)would take fourth, with the Netherlands finishing fifth in 1:33:01.

Even the Germans were surprised that they were able to pull out the win.

“I knew I had to work on the bike because there were some really fast runners with De Nigro, Pearson and Sanchez coming up, so I wanted to stay away,” Graf said after the race. “So I worked really hard on the first lap of the bike already and then I was suffering quite bad on the run and I saw Pearson coming closer, but yeah, I’m really glad I could keep him off and yeah, I think Tanja did really the MVP performance today. That was crazy. I didn’t expect to start first and then suddenly she came around the corner.”

You can see the full results from today’s race here.

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