The WTCS Final in Abu Dhabi saw a number of incredible performances. Here, we dive into the fastest splits of the men’s and women’s races.
Fastest Swims
Men
As has become a trend in 2022, Mark Dévay crushed the swim. The pace in the water was high as each athlete came out of the water one second after another and one at a time.
Of the contenders for the world title, Bergere was 17 seconds down on the lead, Wilde was 23 seconds down and Yee was 41 seconds back.
Interestingly, two of the five fastest swimmers, Takumi Hojo and David Castro Fajardo, did not manage to hold on to the front group in the first lap of the bike. As important as a strong swim is, it has to be coupled with early bike speed for it to pay off in races like Abu Dhabi.
Women
Flora Duffy asserted herself from the start in Abu Dhabi and logged the fastest swim of the day. One particularly impressive split came from Beth Potter. More typically known for her running abilities, Potter had the joint-sixth best swim, highlighting just how much she has improved in the water over the past 12 months.
Summer Rappaport endured a similar race to Hojo and Castro. She had the second fastest swim but quickly lost time on the first lap of the back and dropped away from the front pack.
Similarly, Cassandre Beaugrand actually had the eighth fastest swim of the day. She was just ahead of three women that went on to make the front pack: Lena Meissner, Lisa Tertsch and Maya Kingma. Beaugrand’s T1 also matched the leading athletes in the women’s field. Therefore, her issue was the early pace on the bike.
Fastest Bikes
Men
After a difficult swim, Jelle Geens had the best bike of the day. He had to bridge to the main group. Such was the nature of the race, all of the athletes with the best bike splits were in the same boat as Geens. After losing ground in the water, they had to push the early stages of the back to catch the main group and then enjoyed the same times over the subsequent laps.
The best split from a man in the lead or main packs was actually Leo Bergere. His split of 54:57 was the fastest split by an athlete that emerged within 50 seconds of Mark Devay in the swim.
Bergere actually put 15 seconds into Yee over the course of the bike and a significant 34 seconds into Hayden Wilde.
Women
A little unsurprisingly, the six fastest splits of the women’s race came from the six athletes in the front pack.
Such was their pace, even crashes for Taylor Knibb and Maya Kingma did not cost them positions in the top-6 bike splits. Indeed, despite their crashes, Knibb and Kingma were still a minute faster than the best of the chasers.
After losing 5 seconds in the swim, Georgia Taylor-Brown recovered 4 seconds over the bike in her battle with Duffy, ensuring that the WTCS would come down to a showdown on the run.
Fastest Runs
Men
Morgan Pearson had an absolutely electrifying run and at one point it looked as if he would run through everyone to take the win. Bergere managed to hold him off, though, with the fifth fastest split of the day.
Interestingly, Yee actually out-ran Geens by four seconds. However, after a slow T2, the time Yee lost in transition would come back to bite him as Geens beat him to third place and in doing so cost Yee the world title.
Women
Flora Duffy was peerless on the run. Her split of 32:27 was over a minute better than Taylor-Brown and was one of the fastest 10km splits of her career. In fact, it was one of the top-10 female running splits of all time in the WTCS.
Leonie Periault stormed to the second best run of the day to elevate herself to 5th. Along with Beaugrand, Lombardi and Casillas Garcia, Periault was one of four women that broke into the top-6 run splits from the chase pack.
In their battle for the bronze medal, Lena Meissner and Taylor Knibb logged the 11th and 13th fastest runs of the day (in 35:03 and 35:07 respectively).
Meanwhile, Vittoria Lopes held on to take 6th place with the 23rd fastest run of the day. After a brilliant swim and bike, it was a well-earned top-10 finish for the Brazilian.
View the full race results here.
