In her first WTCS race since Cozumel in 2016, Gwen Jorgensen returned to the highest echelon of elite triathlon. Today’s race in Cagliari marked her biggest step yet in a comeback that began in earnest at the Oceania Cup in Taupo back in February.
Unfortunately, her day in Sardinia did not end quite as she would have hoped.
A difficult swim saw her emerge at the back of the field, 1 minute 41 seconds down on the leader, Vittoria Lopes. From there, her race was always going to be a struggle.
After the race, Jorgensen and her team were at a loss to explain what went wrong with her swim. Hitherto, her swimming this season had been at minimum comfortably in the middle of the pack or better, including at the New Plymouth World Cup. Notwithstanding that the level of swimming in the women’s Series is arguably at an all-time high, it did not follow previous form for Jorgensen to have lost so much ground.
In all likelihood, there will have been something else at play. However, at this point a more tangible point like a goggle issue or contact with another swimmer can be ruled out.
One particular problem that subsequently stood in Jorgensen’s way was the layout of the bike course. With ten laps of 3.8km, there was precious little time to lose, especially with a charging six woman breakaway setting a furious tempo. The average lap times of the leaders took a little under 5 minutes 30 seconds, giving Jorgensen a little over 3 minutes of protection.
Ultimately, it would not prove enough and she was lapped out of the race on the sixth bike lap.
Jorgensen, though, was one of several women to be lapped out in Cagliari. The promising Swedish youngster Tilda Månsson was lapped out on the seventh lap, as was Ivana Kuriackova.
Margot Garabedian, Hiraku Fukuoka, Ekaterina Shabalina and Dominika Peszleg were the other athletes to be lapped out.
For Jorgensen, then, the pressing issue going forward will be to figure out what happened with her swim and how best to address it. The Huatulco World Cup remains the next race on her schedule and that will be a course at which could do very well.
