As she crossed the finish line, Bianca Seregni’s smile could have powered the city. Almost two hours of racing at the brutal Weihai World Cup had yielded a first ever World Cup win for the young Italian in truly emphatic fashion.
From the beach start, the athletes enjoyed a long run into the sea as the tide had gone out. Seregni and Ivana Kuriackova made the most of the additional run to move ahead of the field and eventually plunged into the water.
Before long, Seregni had left the field behind.
She developed a lead over the two swim laps and exited the water in a time of 19:20. Bailee Brown was the next woman out in 19:43. Seregni was able to glance over her shoulder as she ran to T1 to watch her rivals goose-step through the shallows. To some, the lead may have been disorientating. For Seregni, it has practically become the norm.
With a challenging bike course ahead, Seregni did not push the early stages of the second discipline with any real vigour. A few aggressive bursts helped her up the hills but otherwise she awaited the inevitable.
A chase group had formed behind and soon caught the Italian. With extra wheels to shelter behind, Seregni slotted into the pack.
Tanja Stroschneider and Lisa Perterer seemed to relish the climbing and put in some hard surges at the front. Perterer had narrowly missed out on a shock victory at the Austrian Road Race Championships earlier in the summer. Her prowess on two wheels therefore helped to keep the group on their toes.
For Seregni, the question was simple. Would her legs hold? At the Paris Olympic Test Event she had led the swim but then dropped away on the bike. She has not always been able to train at full capacity this season so her strength has not been where she has hoped at times.
The pace set by Perterer and Stroschneider showed on several athletes. After good swims, Yifan Yang and Wen Wei dropped back, leaving sixteen women at the front. Seregni, though, held firm.
Hollie Elliott took control of the pack on the final lap and acquitted herself well on her World Cup debut. It was Márta Kropkó, though, that had the smoothest T2.
Sergeni stormed into the lead out of transition. Over the first kilometre, she continued to add time to her advantage and looked in danger of running away to a dominant victory.
Perterer fared the best of the chasers and set after her. Anna Godoy Contreras then followed with Ilaria Zane closing fast.
On the flats, Sergeni looked on a different level. Although she had to work hard up the hills, she cruised down them and soon rediscovered her top speed. By the midpoint, Perterer had managed to stem the loss of seconds yet could not reduce the gap.
Ultimately, no one could get close to Seregni and her run proved as dominant as her swim. She therefore crossed the line to seal the gold medal, taking a major boost into the latter part of the season.
Perterer crossed 15 seconds later to seal the silver medal. After injury trouble, it represented her first (triathlon) medal of the year. As with Seregni, it may set her up for an assault on the final few races of 2023.
In the closing stages, Zane passed Godoy to make it two Italian women on the podium. Godoy took 4th place while Niina Kishimoto rounded out the top-5.
You can view the full results here.
