One of the big talking points from the women’s race at WTCS Cagliari was the accomplished performance of the 2019 world champion, Katie Zaferes.
In a sterling all-round display, Zaferes finished 12th. That came after her two recent wins at Americas Cup races in St. Peters and Punta Cana. At both of those events, she broke away to race solo in the swim and then rode and ran alone to seal her victories. In their wake, there were hopes that she was nearing the form required to compete in the WTCS.
Today in Cagliari, Zaferes proved that those hopes were well-founded.
A swim time of 18:42 saw her lose 34 seconds to the fastest split; 21 of those seconds, though, came on the first lap. With a little more race sharpness (that being WTCS race sharpness where she has feet to chase rather than open water ahead to enjoy), she should be able to reduce such gaps going forward.
The real element of Zaferes’ race that needs to be talked about, though, is her cycling.
She was an absolute powerhouse on the course. In the first half of the bike, there were moments in which it seemed like she was almost single-handedly holding the leash connecting the breakaway to the chase. Nina Eim, Beth Potter and Kirsten Kasper all gave noteworthy assistance to Zaferes but it was a little surprising to see her so shoulder so much of the work.
At the end of bike laps 2, 5 and 8 she led the breakaway. At the end of a further three laps, she was among the top-4 riders over the line in the chase. Zaferes’ face, then, was virtually ever-present at the front.
It was a stark contrast to her first race back at WTCS Abu Dhabi in which she spent the race reacting to others as opposed to proactively trying to shape her pack.
That she appears to have rediscovered her cycling legs should also alarm many of her fellow athletes. Zaferes has enjoyed enough breakaways over the years for everyone to know what a threat she can be if she gets a chance to attack.
In addition, Zaferes was able to log a 33:45 run split. On the surface, that is exactly a minute behind the race winner Georgia Taylor-Brown. Back in Abu Dhabi, though, her run was 1 minute 24 seconds slower than the race winner Beth Potter. With a faster run over double the distance, Zaferes is clearly inching back to her best shape.
Her running was not a major feature of her triumphs in St. Peters or Punta Cana. As such, breaking under the 34 minute mark is another notable milestone. Given how much work she took on during the bike, it represented a great time. If we focus on the breakaway in Cagliari, Taylor-Brown and Emma Lombardi were considerably quicker. Yet Taylor Spivey, the bronze medallist, was only 8 seconds faster.
The signs therefore indicate that if Zaferes can adjust her starting speed in the swim and get into breakaways (as used to be her bread and butter), her last two disciplines are roughly where she needs to be to fight for a medal.
It is naturally too soon to suggest that she is around the corner from competing for WTCS medals or wins. Nevertheless, when you chart her trajectory over the past two and a half months, her improvements have been mightily impressive.
Today, she bested both Kirsten Kasper and Erica Ackerlund of her American team mates. Summer Rappaport, meanwhile, was less than a minute ahead in 7th.
Therefore it seems fair to say that Cagliari stands as a real staging point in Zaferes’ comeback. While she may have narrowly missed the top-10, she showed that even better days may lie in the very near future.
