Piece of cake for Le Corre
Pierre Le Corre barely missed a beat. In fact, he made it all look a little easier than he probably should have.
In his first WTCS race of the season, the recently-crowned world military champion claimed 5th place on the back of a consummate all-round display. He was also the only man to hang with Alex Yee and Hayden Wilde on the first lap of the run (notwithstanding Jonas Schomburg’s not-so-surprising sneak attack that put him in first place for a spell).
In doing so, Le Corre has stamped his ticket for the Olympic Test Event in Paris later in the year. In the women’s race, Emma Lombardi and Cassandre Beaugrand also did so by dint of their top-5 finishes. That trio will therefore join Leonie Periault, Leo Bergere and Dorian Coninx in Paris (they had qualified at previous races).
Le Corre’s position has suddenly become a lot rosier than the start of the year. With Vincent Luis currently on the road back from a stress response in his hip, Le Corre has a golden chance to book his Olympic place next year. Bergere and Coninx have looked fabulous at times this season but Le Corre was as close as anyone else to them in Cagliari.
He could well take the third men’s place at the Games, especially if Luis struggles with his injury. As a result, while long distance will still draw him (as his win at the Infinitri showed), the short course world might not want to share Le Corre.
Yee and Wilde run fastest splits of all time
Let’s start with the obvious. Course measurements can be a little funky and it is not always fair to compare different routes on the road. For that reason, best times are often only of limited utility in triathlon; comparison on the same circuit is helpful but raw times are not always insightful. Even if World Triathlon has parameters for how a course should be measured, it will not be perfectly 10km every time.
Nevertheless, in Cagliari Alex Yee and Hayden Wilde gave us two great reasons to ignore the above disclaimer.
By logging 28:31 (Yee) and 28:35 (Wilde), the duo hit the fastest ever official splits in a men’s WTCS race. In raw terms, 28-mid is frankly absurd speed. In the bigger picture, it also represents a landmark moment for the sport. Arguably not since Alistair Brownlee dropped a bombshell of a 10km at the London Olympics in 2012 has a triathlete made such a splash on the run.
And this time two of them did it.
Triathlon is of course a test of all-round skill rather than running, but these two outstanding splits have to count for something. As they push one another, Yee and Wilde are elevating the sport to new heights.
The lingering effects of COVID
It was highlighted in the run-up to the weekend that several of the field had caught COVID-19 at WTCS Yokohama. Among the fallen were Kirsten Kasper and Taylor Spivey while Vasco Vilaca noted he had “a little virus” after the race.
With the short turnaround between the Japanese and Sardinian events, the athletes tackling both already faced a challenge to optimise their performance across the double. They had two weeks to balance recovery and holding fitness to ensure they could perform at their best.
With recovering from the virus also thrown in, that represented quite the challenge for a number of athletes.
If nothing else, it should stand as a reminder that external factors could yet shape this season and that the shadow of the pandemic continues to linger.
Are the men swimming fast enough?
Márk Dévay led out the swim yet again and is a fantastic swimmer to watch in the water. He has a nicely balanced stroke and is currently perhaps the best of the circuit in the first discipline. As good as he is, though, (and he is exceptional in the water), a question regarding the swim arose in Cagliari.
Only one of the top-10 swimmers in the men’s field ultimately finished in the top-10 at the end of the race. That individual was Dorian Coninx who finished 4th.
By contrast, six of the top-10 female swimmers landed in the top-10. But for Maya Kingma’s misfortune with breathing problems on the run, it might have been more.
It would be a slight exaggeration to say the swim is everything in the women’s race. However at this point in time it appears to be much more important than in the men’s race.
Dévay swam 17:07 for his 1500m; meanwhile Vittoria Lopes recorded a time of 18:08.
For the fastest male swimmer to have been as much faster proportionally than the fastest female swimmer as Alex Yee was than Cassandre Beaugrand in the run (Yee ran 28:31 to Beaugrand’s 32:25 and both were the fastest in their races), the men would have needed to have swam a minute quicker.
Naturally the different start times mean the men could have faced different waves. Yet it is hard to shake the feeling that the best male swimmers could be extracting more from their strong suit. In the statistical breakdown, you will also see that the men’s swim time distribution is a lot more clustered than the women’s time, indicating that more men are able to get closer to the fastest swimmer.
With Yee and Wilde hitting new heights in the run, the swim will be the next frontier for the men’s race. If anyone wants to beat them, they will have to do so there.
French depth
With three wins from three races (and with three different athletes no less), Britain deserves all of the praise for its supremacy in the women’s Series.
However, there is one cohort that can give them a run for their money. France have put two men in the top-5 at all three WTCS races this season. America almost managed to do so on the women’s side but only Taylor Spivey made the top-5 in Cagliari.
In Abu Dhabi, the French added 6th place too, while in Cagliari they had three men in the top-5.
No country can quite match the depth of the French men. While their consistency has thus far only yielded one medal with Leo Bergere’s bronze this weekend, it is an enviable record to say the least.
Taylor and her getaway car
The new leader of the women’s WTCS, Taylor Spivey, has one particular distinction that separates her from the rest of the field.
She is the only woman to have made the breakaway at all three races this season.
To take the squad of six that hit the front in Cagliari, neither Georgia Taylor-Brown nor Emma Lombardi made the breakaway in the first two rounds, Maya Kingma did not race in Abu Dhabi, Vittoria Lopes did not race in Yokohama and Summer Rappaport lost the group in Yokohama. That leaves Spivey.
In homage to another Taylor, she clearly has found a means of escaping from the main pack, a getaway car if you will. With two bronze medals and a 4th place this year, whatever Spivey is doing is working.
When she steps up to the start line in Montreal, then, look for Spivey to continue her breakaway streak.
