Olympic qualification. Another WTCS medal. A spot in the overall top-8 of the WTCS.
Tim Hellwig had checked all three boxes with his recent form. Having won back to back African Cup races earlier in the season, as well as having been part of the triumphant German team in the Mixed Team Relays in Hamburg and Paris, it had been a near-perfect year for the German athlete.
As he lined up to start the Chengdu World Cup with the number 1 tattooed on his arm, all that was really left was the icing on the cake.
Although he had won WTCS Hamburg back in 2021 in something of a surprise victory, a World Cup win had escaped him. Indeed, a World Cup medal of any colour had eluded him. Such was his form heading into Chengdu, though, it seemed like he was on the verge of setting that right.
Across the 1500m swim, Márk Dévay and Dylan McCullough piled the pressure onto the field and opened up a healthy lead. Dévay was the first to exit the water in 17:50 while McCullough was only a second behind. Heading up the line of chasers was Hellwig.
The German emerged 18 seconds behind Dévay with Takumi Hojo for company. Crucially, he was followed by a thick pack of athletes. Among those in the chase were Jonas Schomburg, Bence Bicsák and Makoto Odakura. In total, Hellwig had thirteen men within 10 seconds of him going into T1. As a result, a considerable pack came together and set about hunting down Dévay and McCullough.
The leading pair made a good fist of staying ahead. However, by the second of the six bike laps, their hopes of staying away were all but over.
As the breakaway duo were caught, Hellwig and Hojo slotted into the lead. An uncharacteristically slow swim from Lasse Nygaard Priester had put the multiple World Cup medallist out of contention. Otherwise, the majority of the field had made it into the main pack.
After losing almost a minute to the lead pair in the water, Aram Michell Peñaflor Moysen rallied on the bike and was able to make it into the front group.
Over thirty men rode together at the front. In a largely processional couple of laps, there was little to separate the field. The pace was kept high to deter any breakaway attempts and, although, the odd dig off the front came here and there, little happened to shake up the pack.
Instead, all eyes turned to the 10km run to determine the winner.
Few of the front pack spared a second in T2 and a large group continued to run together. Whereas the pack had exceeded thirty on the bike, it now stood at over twenty. Hojo, the winner of the Yeongdo World Cup, did not finish. However there were still plenty of threats jostling for position in the front pack.
Throughout it all, Hellwig breezed along.
Rostislav Pevtsov had moved up the field on the bike and lurked on the fringes of the lead throughout the early stages of the run. Likewise, Darr Smith and Luke Willian hovered nearby, as did McCullough.
The first of the four run laps ticked by and then the second did too. It was hard to escape the sensation that the race was waiting to burst yet no one seemed quite ready to pop the growing tension.
As Peñaflor, Odakura and Bicsák gathered at the front, the pace rose a little and a few men were dropped from the pack. None of the main contenders, though, lost an inch of ground.
In the late stages, the dam finally broke.
Riding a wave of momentum that started deep in the summer, Hellwig was the one to charge ahead. A group of five men solidified behind as the likes of McCullough and Martin Sobey struggled to keep pace. Yet the five chasers could not quite decide among themselves who would take up the challenge of reeling the German in.
Hellwig continued to hare towards the line. As much as his gap looked like it could have been closed, the conviction with which he ran made his win seem all but certain.
For all the efforts of the chasers, they simply could not bridge the gap and Hellwig crossed the line to take the win by 6 seconds. Attention instantly turned to the sprint behind.
Bicsák flew down the blue carpet but Pevtsov and Peñaflor snuck ahead. Going stride for stride, the athletes from Azerbaijan and Mexico lunged for the line and it was Peñaflor that nabbed the silver medal.
Receiving an identical time to his rival, Pevtsov claimed the bronze.
Only 1 second later Bicsák finished to seal 4th place while Odakura rounded out the top-5, another second behind and 1 second ahead of Smith.
For all the frantic action of the finish, Hellwig could afford to stand aside as a bystander, with the gold medal already in his pocket. A first World Cup win had been logged. With another to come in a week’s time in Tongyeong, there are few that would bet against him doubling his gold medal haul.
You can view the full results here.
