The Americas Cup in Villarrica, Chile, doubled as the South American Championships. With world rankings points on the line, though, Villarrica saw a number of athletes from around the world take on the Olympic distance race.
Men’s race
Long term fans will not be surprised to hear that Richard Varga led the men into T1. The Slovakian put together a masterful swim, logging a time of 16:52. Only four men were able to get within 30 seconds of him. Among that group were Kauê Willy of Brazil and Ramon Armando Matute of Ecuador.
With Vicente Trewhela and Luis Miguel Velasquez Ramos also for company, Varga led the front group of five on the bike as they extended their lead over the field.
The chase group contained athletes such as Antonio Bravo Neto and, once he made up the time he lost in the swim, Felix Duchampt. However, they simply could not make in-roads into the Varga group.
While the front group lost Matute during the bike (with the man from Ecuador unfortunately not finishing), they arrived in T2 with a healthy lead. That did not encourage them to rest on their laurels. Willy and Varga sped through T2 with the fastest transition splits of the day and darted ahead on the run. Bravo Neto, for example, took 38 seconds in T2 to Willy’s 19 seconds.
Over the course of the run, Willy edged ahead of Varga. Ultimately he built a lead of over 20 seconds to take the win in style. Varga held on for silver. Although, to say he held on is a tad misleading; he still finished over half a minute ahead of the bronze medallist.
While Trewhela and Velasquez Ramso fought valiantly to hang onto the bronze medal, they had no answer as Bravo Neto surged through the field to complete the podium. For good measure, Bravo Neto ran the joint fastest run of the day. His time of 32:23 was matched only by the 4th placed athlete, Aoba Yasumatsu.
Duchampt came home in 5th.
Women’s race
The women’s race threatened to see another Slovakian athlete, Ivana Kuriackova, lead the race out of the water as she did in La Habana. In the end, she emerged on the feet of Macarena Salazar with Juri Ide and Moira Miranda for company.
That quartet had an 11 second gap to the next athlete out of the water, Iria Rodriguez of Spain, and they took full advantage of it.
Kuriackova lost a couple of seconds in T1 but was quick to push through to the front of the breakaway and drive the group forwards.
Romina Biagioli of Argentina arrived in Chile in good form. However, she lost a minute to the breakaway in the swim. She therefore had to grind through the bike in the main pack as they tried to reduce the gap.
The efforts of the chase went in vain, though.
The front group worked well together and added almost a minute to their lead. Towards the end of the bike, Ide began to lose touch but Kuriackova, Miranda and Salazar held firm.
Salazar clearly paid for her efforts early in the run and was powerless to stop Kuriackova and Miranda from sailing away. With a buffer of around two minutes, that duo seemed primed to take the win.
Or so they thought.
From further afield, Biagioli commenced her run and began to eat into the leaders’ margin. The lead fell to one minute. And then it fell further. Biagioli, though, was running out of road.
Into the final stages, Kuriackova had pushed clear and put a small gap into Miranda. As Biagioli gobbled up Miranda, she knew she had only one more athlete to catch.
Yet with every second, her window narrowed.
It was in the closing moments that Biagioli finally caught Kuriackova. In a dramatic final flourish, the Argentinian athlete took the win by a mere 6 seconds. After a brilliant performance, Kuriackova deserved a win, but then so too did Biagioli for her run that crushed the field.
Miranda toughed out the closing stages to take a hard-earned bronze medal, a mere 5 seconds behind Kuriackova.
View the full results here.
