Swim
Chase McQueen and Diego Moya were the top performers in the sea at WTCS Sunderland, logging times of 8:48 and 8:49, respectively.
Picking up where he left of at WTCS Hamburg, Brock Hoel was also among the fastest swimmers in Sunderland as he hit a time of 8:52. Jonas Schomburg and Márk Dévay matched Hoel and had a good swims. Although, for the second straight event, Dévay was not the first man out of the water which was a slight surprise given his form over the past two years.
Léo Bergere was the best of the medallists in the water, clocking a time of 8:53, and used a fast swim to get into an early breakaway. Max Stapley swam well on his debut to match Bergere’s split.
Aside from Bergere and Tom Richard (8:54), who finished 2nd and 7th, none of the top-10 swimmers made it into the top-10. Moreover, only Schomburg and Kenji Nener (8:54) managed to make the top-25 after recording top-10 swim splits.
Therese Feuersinger carried her impressive swimming form forward from Bundesliga Tübingen to lead the way in Sunderland. In what was only her second WTCS start since 2020, she was able to out-swim the likes of Vittoria Lopes and Cassandre Beaugrand with her time of 9:16.
As has become the norm, Lopes was towards the front and looked comfortable throughout the 750m. She emerged 3 seconds behind Feuersinger in 9:19. Beaugrand likewise seemed untroubled in the swim and was 1 second behind Lopes.
Lena Meißner continued to press her case for being one of the best swimmers in the WTCS as she was the fourth woman into T1.
Olivia Mathias, the only Brit in the women’s race, also had a fast swim. Her 9:24 put her only 1 second behind Meißner.
Emma Lombardi then completed the top-6 splits with a time of 9:28.
Interestingly, all three medallists in the women’s race had top-10 swim splits. On that front, Beaugrand and Lombardi were joined by Annika Koch who swam 9:31.
Bike
The top men’s bike splits were primarily made up by athletes from the chase pack.
Tim Hellwig was one such athlete as he led the way with the fastest bike split of the day in 29:06. Adrien Briffod also logged a fast split of 29:10 from the chase.
Meanwhile, Ricardo Batista produced a strong split from the front of the race. He was one of the last men to make it into the breakaway and used a quick first lap to make contact with the leaders. When the first two groups eventually came together on the bike, Batista attacked on the final lap alongside Bergere and Tayler Reid to earn the third fastest split of the day.
For his efforts, Reid also logged a top-6 bike split in 29:13.
Casper Stornes, Seegio Baxter Cabrera, Henri Schoeman and Emil Holm were all part of the chase group and their efforts gave them top-6 bike splits.
In a similar story to the men’s race, the fastest women’s bike splits all came from the chase pack.
Miriam Casillas Garcia led the way in 32:23. Cathia Schär and Solveig Løvseth brought their strong cycling from WTCS Hamburg to Sunderland as they logged the next quickest splits in 32;26 and 32:29, respectively.
Erica Ackerlund and Noelia Juan both clocked 32:35 while Djenyfer Arnold hit 32:36.
With the chase pack and breakaway merging in the women’s race, the fastest bike splits essentially went to the athletes that were able to recover the most time from the swim and make it to the front.
Run
Bergere emerged with the lead at the start of the run after arriving in T2 with a lead from the bike. Once Hayden Wilde and then Pierre Le Corre bridged to him, they were almost guaranteed to clock faster splits.
With Le Corre, that proved to be the case. He out-sprinted Bergere at the end to claim the gold. Having bridged earlier in the run, he had already run 9 seconds quicker than his compatriot and so came away with the fastest split.
However, having suffered from illness prior to Sunderland, Wilde fell apart once he was dropped by the two Frenchmen and trudged over the line 15 seconds later. Wilde had closed the same gap as Le Corre had to Bergere and so would have been on course to clock the same time as Le Corre. Once he cracked, though, there was no coming back.
Wilde clearly shut down his effort once the race was lost as the bronze medal was all-but confirmed. That he lost 18 seconds to Le Corre in the space of roughly 500m says plenty about how close Wilde was to his limit.
Richard Murray and Vasco Vilaca had good runs as they hit 14:50 and 14:51, respectively.
Henri Schomena (14:56), Tom Richard (14:58) and Antonio Serrat Seoane (14:59) were the only other men to dip under the 15 minute barrier.
Cassandre Beaugrand oozed class on the run in Sunderland.
Although Emma Lombardi jumped ahead out of T2, Beaugrand simply waltzed up to her teammate. When her decisive move came, the only indication that Beaugrand had actually changed her pace was the sight of Lombardi slipping behind.
For her efforts, Lombardi came away with the third fastest split of the day.
The second fastest, though, went to none other than Gwen Jorgensen. After being stranded behind the main pack out T1, Jorgensen spent much of the bike chasing in vain. She lost the best part of 2 minutes to the front pack on the bike and entered T2 out of the reckoning. The former Olympic champion nonetheless battled on and dropped the second fastest run of the day.
In doing so, she repeated her achievement at WTCS Hamburg of logging the second quickest women’s run of the event.
Given her running speed, Jorgensen seems to be capable of making it into the top-10 of a WTCS race. In addition her swimming does not appear to be a problem.
The American clocked 9:41 for the 750m in Sunderland which is some way behind the likes of Feuersinger, Lopes and Beaugrand. However, her time stacked up well against several high finishers.
Leonie Periault (4th) swam 9:45. Julie Derron (7th) swam 9:43. Yuko Takahashi (11th) swam 9:39. The problem, then, is not the swim.
Nor is it really T1. Djenyfer Arnold (20th) swam an identical time to Jorgensen and then completed transition in 53 seconds to Jorgensen’s 52. yet Arnold rose 2 minutes 20 seconds quicker than Jorgensen.
The first lap of the bike and deploying the speed to get into the right group therefore appears to be the primary issue facing Jorgensen at this point. If she can find a way to slot into the main pack on the bike after swimming in the main pack, then her running speed will put her in the conversation for top-10 finishes and better.
Annika Koch and Leonie Periault and the fourth and fifth fastest runs of the day. For both, their times will leave a sense of what could have been.
Koch was only 1 second slower than Lombardi on the run yet finished 6 seconds behind. The difference came from Lombardi’s superior T2 and positioning at the end of the bike. On another day, silver was there for the German to take.
Similarly, Periault fell at the start of the run and had to gather herself. Without her fall, she would have run faster than Lombardi and Koch. It is impossible to say whether she would have made up the 5 seconds to Koch and 11 seconds to Lombardi, yet given how far down the standings she tumbled, her fall likely proved costly.
Marlene Gomez-Göggel had the sixth fastest run of the day in 16:39 while Rachel Klamer, Julie Derron and Nicole Van Der Kaay were the only other women able to run sub-17 minutes.
