Favorites Come Through With Big Wins at WTCS French Riviera
World Triathlon and the Professional Triathletes Organisation offered up a busy weekend of racing in the French Riviera this weekend – yesterday we saw an exciting T100 event, while today triathlon fans got treated to a pair of classic World Triathlon Championship Series (WTCS) sprint events. On the men’s side of things Aussie Matt Hauser continued his dream season with a third WTCS title (to go along with two runner-up finishes), while Cassandre Beaugrand returned to the top of the podium once again as both used their signature running skills to surge ahead in the final stages of the race.
Men’s Race
Hauser takes the win at WTCS Hamburg. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon
Hauser would put his swim talent to good use right from the gun, exiting the water in the lead (9:05) alongside Hungary’s Mark Devay, with Brazil’s Miguel Hidalgo about three seconds behind and Portugal’s Vasco Vilaca up close as well. There were 16 men out of the water within 15 seconds of the lead, with pre-race favourites Alex Yee hitting dry land at 9:25 and Hayden Wilde (fresh off his T100 win yesterday) well back at 10:01.
Hauser pushed out of transition on the bike, with Alberto Gonzalez on his wheel, and the two would create the impetus for a breakaway group of ten that included the two aggressors along with Vilaca, Hidalgo, Canadian Charles Paquet, Devay, France’s Dorian Coninx and Tom Richard, the Netherlands’ Gjalt Panjer and Germany’s Henry Graf.
The group would work well together, managing to hold off the chase group relatively easily – by the end of the fourth loop the gap was about 31 seconds on the chasers that now included Yee, with Wilde in the third chase group that was about a minute down.
The lead group would work together and surge into T2, with Panjer leading the way while Vilaca and Hauser appeared calm and collected about two seconds back. Hidalgo flew onto the run course in front, but Vilaca and Hauser were right on his heels as the 10 men looked to decide the medals.
As the chase group was nearing T2 a crash in the chase group wiped out the hopes of Canadian star Tyler Mislawchuk, who would go down and end up pulling out of the race. That didn’t affect those towards the front of the chase group, though, who would hit T2 about 45 seconds behind. Wilde would surge through the final lap of the bike, riding clear of the third chase group to hit T2 just seconds behind Yee as he started the run.
Up front, though, Hauser, Hidalgo and Vilaca were pulling clear of the rest of the men from the lead group, setting the stage for an exciting race for the medals. By the end of the first of three loops of the run the trio were four seconds up on Richard and Conninx, with Paquet another second back.
About halfway through the second loop, Vilaca made his move, trying to put some pressure on Hauser as the pair dropped Hidalgo. With 1 km to go, though, Hauser surged away from Vilaca and ran clear to the win. Even though he pushed Hauser right to the line, Vilaca couldn’t find another gear and would have to settle with second five seconds behind, with Hidalgo hanging on for the final spot on the podium. Conninx would lead the battle of the Frenchman to take fourth ahead of Richard, with Gonzalez sneaking past Paquet as the Canadian celebrated with a high-five to a member of the crowd and take sixth.
Yee would post the day’s second fastest run to get himself up to ninth, with Wilde coming back from his big T100 win yesterday to finish 11th.
| Position | Athlete | Overall Time |
| 1 | Matthew Hauser (AUS) | 0:50:53 |
| 2 | Vasco Vilaca (POR) | 0:50:57 |
| 3 | Miguel Hidalgo (BRA) | 0:51:20 |
| 4 | Dorian Coninx (FRA) | 0:51:27 |
| 5 | Tom Richard (FRA) | 0:51:32 |
| 6 | Alberto Gonzalez Garcia (ESP) | 0:51:37 |
| 7 | Charles Paquet (CAN) | 0:51:37 |
| 8 | Henry Graf (GER) | 0:51:43 |
| 9 | Alex Yee (GBR) | 0:51:49 |
| 10 | David Cantero Del Campo (ESP) | 0:52:06 |
Full results are available here.
Women’s Race
Beaugrand took control of the swim early, but Maya Kingma was quick to jump on the Olympic champ’s feet with Sian Rainsley close behind. Over the last half of the swim American Summer Rappaport pulled to the front and would lead the way out of the water at 10:06, with Beaugrand and Kingma three seconds down. There were 10 women within 10 seconds out of the water – included amongst that top group were American Taylor Spivey and Luxembourg’s Jeanne Lehair. Great Britain’s Beth Potter, the top-ranked woman in the WTCS standings, would hit transition about 15 seconds behind.
Early on in the bike a decent sized group managed to create a bit of a breakaway that included all of the fast swimmers along with Potter and her countrywoman Olivia Mathias, France’s Emma Lombardi, German’s Nina Eim, Lisa Tertsch and Annika Koch, with Canada’s Desirae Ridenour close behind.
That group wasn’t able to make the break stick, though, which meant that by the time the women hit the fifth and final loop there were 26 women together with all the pre-race favourites now in the mix, including France’s Leonie Periault.
Potter was aggressive over the final few kilometres of the bike and got herself to the front of the pack, as did Beaugrand, but it was France’s Emma Lombardi who surged into transition first. After a dramatically quicker transition than we saw Beaugrand do in Hamburg or Toronto, the reigning world champion surged to the front within the first few hundred meters of the run, but her move was marked quickly by Lombardi and Lehair. After a poor transition Periault started to work her way towards the front group of three.
As she made that move, though, Lehair surged to the front, looking to make things difficult for Periault to join the lead group.
As they started the second loop of the run Lehair’s move seemed to be working, as Periault found herself in no-man’s land, running by herself about four seconds back, with Potter suddenly forced to hang on to the chase group that included Spivey and Germany’s Nina Eim.
As she neared the end of the second loop, Lehair made another move, opening up some space on Beaugrand, while Lombardi suddenly found herself losing ground on the two women ahead and was now looking to hold off Periault for the final spot on the podium.
Beaugrand would easily absorb Lehair’s push, gradually moving to a spot right behind the Luxembourg athlete. As they hit the blue carpet, Lehair made another push and opened up some ground, only to have Beaugrand turn on the afterburners to fly around the final corner in front and take the win. Lehair would enjoy the finish and end up a deceiving seven seconds back, with Periault managing to overtake Lombardi for the final spot on the podium. Potter would end up taking the three-way sprint for fifth ahead of Eim and Spivey.
| Position | Athlete | Overall Time |
| 1 | Cassandre Beaugrande (FRA) | 0:56:43 |
| 2 | Jeanne Lehair (LUX) | 0:56:49 |
| 3 | Leonie Periault (FRA) | 0:57:00 |
| 4 | Emma Lombardi (FRA) | 0:57:03 |
| 5 | Beth Potter (GBR) | 0:57:10 |
| 6 | Nina Eim (GER) | 0:57:11 |
| 7 | Taylor Spivey (USA) | 0:57:15 |
| 8 | Tanja Neubert (GER) | 0:57:21 |
| 9 | Tilda Mansson (SWE) | 0:57:25 |
| 10 | Anna Godoy Contreras (ESP) | 0:57:31 |
Full results are available here.
How much is everyone looking forward to Yee Vs Wilde then?
I need to update my knowledge on how you can have athletes race WTCS. World ranked #777 Mateusz Głuszkowski is on the list, as are the Sudak sisters (near the bottom of top 300). I’m singling these folks out simply because they’re from my country, so they attracted my attention. I suppose you can submit a higher ranked athlete’s name and then sub him/her out…
there was no waiting list , initially the male race was not full ( it now is ) and the female race still has13 open places so if your fed is willing to enter you, you are in.
most feds would ask for a certain level , an athelte to have before entering them. but thats totally up to the fed. ( you need to have finished the anti doping course and usually have done a medical test and off you go )
I think you often make fun of Australia not entering females into wtcs but that is mostly because australia, I think , wants an athelte to be top 70 in the world ranking before they enter them ( now dont quote me on the exact place but its most likely within plus minus 5 places from memory )
@jackets Why do you think Hauser (Bib #1) will not race?
Start list linked in OP ^ ^
Sorry everyone, I did another thread and forget about this one (I had it in my head this was the T100 thread)
Please ignore my other thread and let it die (maybe I should turn that into the T100 thread)
If he’s racing I thought he wasn’t, as someone may have mentioned it a couple of weeks ago in here, I don’t tend to check start lists until im making my race predictions.
After his last win he said he was going back to Aus and wasn’t racing in Europe again but obviously that has changed because he is on the start list wearing number 1.
Wilde and Hauser in bed together being interviewed.
Good God! Wilde is racing both T100 and this race, I thought his name being on T100 was a mistake.
Another great performance from the trio of Hauser/Vilaca/Hidalgo who are on top of the series. I don’t think Yee time from them on the run after a solid breakaway group. Still crazy for Wilde to bridge up to the first chase pack and run to the top 15.
The sport is changing once again, what’s old is new again. Super hard swims to stretch out the group, then some swim/bike hammers putting it all on the line in the first few k’s to insure a small breakaway. And when you look who makes that select group, not even Yee or Wilde will run them down with any more than 15 seconds gap.
And in the final results, Hauser outran both those guy for fastest run split, Yee of course likely easing off at the end when there was no one left to catch. But pretty amazing that they would be within seconds anyway. Wilde lost any chance in the swim too, being gapped to 3rd pack where he had to pull himself up to the next one on his own at the end. Great effort for him too being so close to Yee who was fresh…
And loved the tactics of that lead group, seems they have gotten together and talked about how it should go, taking swim and bike turns when the splits are happening. Domestics of convince. But what happened to Chase, he should have been in that group but had something happen in the swim. Otherwise he had a pretty good race but would have been 1st American if he does his normal swim…
Anybody have the women’s feed up? Doesn’t seem to be loading on Triathlonlive.tv
Nothing for me… just says upcoming and then nothing loads when I click…
I just came here to ask the same thing. Should have started 15 minutes ago.