On its long-awaited return to the World Cup circuit, the finals in Tiszaujvaros had a bit of everything.
In the semi-finals, the swim had proven to be decisive and seemed to indicate that the first discipline would go a long way in shaping the final. You can take a look at the breakdown and race developments of the semi-finals here.
To varying degrees, that proved to be the case in the men’s and women’s races. In the former, the swim played a major role in determining the medallists. Meanwhile, in the latter, the swim altered the complexion of the race but not quite to the same extent as the men’s event.
Race developments
Women
The most obvious takeaway from the women’s race development is the brilliance of Bianca Seregni for the first half. While she would eventually be caught late on in the bike and did not have the run to contend for a medal, she nonetheless lit up the swim and bike.
Although Zsanett Bragmayer made initial progress in hunting Seregni on the bike, the Hungarian fell away and was caught by the group behind.
Indeed, if you exclude Seregni – as a solo rider she did not constitute a lead group so to speak – the women’s “front pack” produced two of the medallists. In keeping with the classic Tiszaujvaros pattern, Noelia Juan and Jolien Vermeylen went on to land on the podium after making what can essentially be called the lead group.
The race winner, though, came from what can be described as the chase pack. Tilda Månsson lost well over a minute to Seregni but was able to recover after the packs eventually came together.
The swim therefore opened up the race as expected. However, the door was not fully shut on the likes of Månsson which allowed her to recover.
Men
The men’s race was much more in line with the Tiszaujvaros trend.
All three medallists were able to get themselves into the front pack on the bike. From there, they controlled the race. Although a second group was able to merge with the lead pack, the extra effort they had to expend on the first half of the bike came back to bite them on the run.
A microcosm of the fate of the packs can be seen with Alberto Gonzalez Garcia and Gábor Faldum. Whereas the former made the original front pack, the latter had to ride his way into contention. That extra push on the bike ultimately cost Faldum as Gonzalez was able to overhaul him at the end to take 3rd place.
Meanwhile, the development plot shows how Casper Stornes had a difficult day as he rode alone for much of the bike before falling into the pack behind.
In Tiszaujvaros, then, the swim is often of the utmost importance.
The Bike Packs
The above bubble plot illustrates how the women’s bike unfolded.
At the start, Seregni and Bragmayer were alone as two isolated points while the field tried to react behind. By the end of the third lap, two of the chase packs had merged and also absorbed Bragmayer. Even with twenty-seven athletes, though, it would take the group until the sixth lap to catch Seregni.
It was during the sixth lap, as the field came together, that Solveig Løvseth really dropped the hammer. As a result, a small group were unable to keep up and fell away from the leaders.
As such, the field saw plenty of changes over the course of the bike.
In the men’s race, the key moves on the bike were made early on. As already mentioned, Lehmann, Baxter and Gonzalez all made the front group out of T1 and so the challenge was for others to make up the deficit.
Tjebbe Kaindl and Gábor Faldum were able to ride up to the leaders on the second lap. Shortly after, by the end of the third lap, the lead and chase packs merged.
Thereafter, the gap between the leaders and the final group on the road held steady.
Top Splits
Márk Dévay was once again the fastest swimmer of the race. For a spell, though, it looked as if Max Stapley would lead the entire swim. However, it later came to light that Stapley had been issued with a penalty for an early start. To a degree, his fast swim thus came as a result of gaining a little bit of clean water through a false start.
Interestingly, Dévay actually tied the fastest split of the weekend. In the second men’s semi-final, Alessio Crociani had also swam a time of 8:41. Dévay, meanwhile, clocked 8:42 in the third semi-final. It was therefore no surprise to see Crociani among the three fastest splits in the final. Likewise, Csongor Lehmann had a top-3 swim split after recording 8:46 to lead out the first men’s semi-final.
As she had in the semi-final, Seregni dropped a split that would have been competitive in the men’s race. Her speed in the water was nothing short of amazing.
Zsanett Bragmayer and Jolien Vermeylen also had good swims. To all intents and purposes, Bragmayer had clean water given that Seregni was so far ahead. As such, Bragmayer had all the advantages of leading without actually doing so.
The men’s bike was fairly uneventful, as seen in the bubble plots. The top splits therefore went to three men that were part of the chase group that merged with the lead pack on the third bike lap.
On a similar note, the top women’s bike splits went to those that recovered from time lost in the water to make the front group. After a (relatively) bad swim, Løvseth came roaring back to clock the quickest bike split. By the end of the bike, she was evidently the strongest woman in the field and tried to force a small solo breakaway.
Jamnicky and Arpinelli found themselves in a similar position to Løvseth out of the water and also managed to recover thanks to fast bike splits.
To come back to the importance of the swim, the men’s running splits provide a useful illustration.
The race winner, Csongor Lehmann, did not actually clock the best run of the day. That went to Maxime Hueber Moosbrugger, while Hugo Milner matched Lehmann’s time.
Both Hueber Moosbrugger and Milner had been caught out in the water and were stranded in the last bike pack on the road (in the bubble plot they were among the group of 9). Had they been able to get nearer to the front, their run would have carried them higher than their ultimate positions of 8th and 10th.
Bence Bicsák was also in the same boat as he clocked the sixth fastest split but ended up down in 14th. Furthermore Bicsák ran only 1 second slower than the bronze medallist, Gonzalez.
As it was, the swim shut the door on several of the fastest runners.
In the women’s race, Vermeylen was the only athlete to record two top-3 splits. Whereas she and Juan had made the equivalent of the front pack on the bike, Månsson had not. Instead, the Junior athlete utilised a brilliant running split to take the win.
At the same time, the fact that Juan and Månsson were so close in terms of splits speaks to the nature of the race.
On paper, a good case can be made that Månsson is the better runner. Juan is a rapidly improving athlete but does not quite have the same track pedigree of the Swedish woman. However, after Månsson had to work in the chase group to catch Juan’s putative front pack (again, Seregni was the leader but not a group), the difference in running was equalised.
Had the finish line been one step closer, Juan would have taken the win and the narrative here would have been how Månsson losing time in the swim cost her.
