On the day a World Cup race came to Chile for the first time, there was an air of familiarity in the outcome. Sandra Dodet of France has been a fixture of the top-5 in World Cups this year. She came into this race as one of the favourites and, after a closely-fought battle on the run with American Gina Sereno, Dodet would pick up yet another World Cup medal in 2022.
As swimming conditions go, those at the start of the race were perhaps some of the least hospitable seen at the elite level. Dramatic waves crashed ahead of the beach start. Several athletes were practically knocked back as soon as they hit the water while some luckier ones timed their dolphin dives to perfection to break ahead. A combination of the waves and cold water (with the water temperature a brisk 14 degrees Celsius) meant that conditions were not conducive to an aggressive swim.
Though Sara Vilic took out the race and tried to force the pace, the pack ultimately remained mostly intact.
Instead, it was the steep, sandy ramp out from the sea to T1 that seemed to do more damage. Lea Coninx and Emy Legault took particular advantage, with Coninx propelling herself into the lead into and out of T1. Dodet, meanwhile, used her run speed to make up several places out of the water into T1.
After such smart work into T1, misfortune then struck Coninx and Legault at the worst time. Coninx lost her wheel on the first corner of the bike course and hit the ground. Though she nearly managed to swerve round Coninx and save herself, Legault was forced to clip the curb and also went down. In an instant, what had been a small group out of T1 was decimated and two fancied athletes were out.
A pack of about a dozen coalesced in the first lap however by the last of the three bike laps, the bulk of the field had reunited. Save for a few turns by a couple of athletes, most notable of which came from Luisa Baptista, the pace was not the most aggressive and the pack rode with several athletes abreast. A running race out of T2 became the order of the day.
Marta Kropko of Hungary had a great T2 and was the first woman onto the run with Audrey Merle on her heels. Both Baptista and Dodet gave around 10 seconds away to their rivals in T2.
In the early stages, Merle took to the front with Marta Pintanel of Spain and Beatrice Mallozzi of Italy for company and a string of athletes in pursuit. Dodet, however, was close behind. After a few minutes, she hit the front of the group and surged clear. A ten metre gap rapidly became twenty metres and then thirty and the race seemed done. Her economical style showed no signs of weakness and her face showed total control.
Baptista moved ahead of Mallozzi and Pintanel and briefly threatened to press on, however she slipped behind. Instead, it was Gina Sereno of America that emerged through the group. The 2021 Americas Champion had come out of T2 towards the back of the group but as the second and final lap of the run started she had narrowed the gap. The first glance over Dodet’s shoulder came next.
Over the course of the lap, the gap between Dodet and Sereno hovered at around five seconds and Dodet’s glances became increasingly frequent. Behind Sereno, Pintanel had broken away from Mallozzi however Maria Carolina Velasquez of Columbia had pulled alongisde her to fight for bronze.
Into the final stages of the run, Sereno looked the smoother runner compared to Dodet but the gap would not quite close. Dodet took the win but Sereno managed her first ever World Cup podium by taking silver.
Impressively, Velasquez broke ahead of Pintanel to take bronze in only her third ever World Cup race. Pintanel took fourth ahead of a fast-finishing Claire Michel.
View the race results here.
