Last season, Cassandre Beaugrand became the first French woman to make it onto the overall women’s podium in the WTCS. After winning two races, she added a bronze medal at the WTCS Final in Pontevedra to take 2nd behind Beth Potter in the standings. Around half a minute later in Pontevedra, Emma Lombardi crossed the line to take 3rd overall in the 2023 Series and hand France another medallist.
Entering the Olympic year, there was a risk that Leonie Periault would be a little overlooked on the French team following the prior antics of her teammates. At WTCS Yokohama, she emphatically ensured that would not be the case.
Lombardi arrived as the top-ranked athlete in the women’s field and got off to a good start in the swim, as did Taylor Knibb, the winner in Yokohama in 2021. Over the course of the second lap in the water, Maya Kingma and Vittoria Lopes took control of the race and led into T1.
After dropping a transition that was smoother than butter, Lombardi claimed the lead as she started the bike. By contrast, Knibb had a slightly slower T1 and conceded 8 seconds to Lombardi. A scattered field rode onto the bike course as small groups tried to clump together after being stretched in the water.
Gradually, a lead group of ten women pooled together with Lombardi, Knibb, Lopes and Kingma all present. In a blast from the recent past, the 2022 world champion Flora Duffy made the front group. Duffy had dropped a brilliant second lap in the swim to gain a lot of ground and emerge as the sixth woman out of the water. Bianca Seregni, Kirsten Kasper and Taylor Spivey were also towards the front.
Clearly in good form following her stellar swim, Kingma tried to attack on the second lap but she was dealt with by the pack. Not long after, seventeen athletes came together at the front. Periault was one of the athletes to make the group after a much-improved swim comapred to her 2023 performances. Laura Lindemann, Anna Godoy Contreras and Djenyfer Arnold were likewise among those to make the top bunch.
The chase group included the recent winner of the Chengdu World Cup, Julie Derron, as well as Nina Eim and Summer Rappaport. However, their deficit slipped from around 15 seconds to over 50 seconds.
Further charges came from Kingma as the Dutch athlete, who medalled at the race in 2021, tried to escape. Unfortunately, Kingma’s race was thwarted by a puncture on the bike shortly before the midpoint. Her bad luck proved a handy boost to Gwen Jorgensen. The American athlete was over 2 minutes down when she eventually joined forces with Kingma. The real action, though, was unfolding up the road.
Another expert transition handed Lombardi the lead onto the run. Kate Waugh had a good T2 and pushed to the front with the French woman while another slightly slower transition for Knibb put her at the back of the lead group.
Having not really shown her hand throughout the race, it was Periault’s turn to assume centre stage. The French athlete looked like she was running on a cloud, such was the lightness of her stride, and she nonchalantly eased away from her fellow leaders. Last month, she ran a 32:29 10km at the ASICS Festival of Running in Paris and her form was superlative. A small gap became a big one in the space of a few hundred metres and, like that, the gold was gone.
With the gold decided long before the finish, the crucial battle became that for the silver medal. Waugh was dropped and Lombardi was joined by Kasper as Knibb worked her way back. Kasper therefore found herself in a crucial position. She needed a medal to guarantee her spot on the American Olympic team. Similarly, Spivey made a surge in the second half of the run to push towards a medal. Somehow, they had to get clear of at least one of Knibb or the two French athletes. However, it seemed there was no world in which they were going to catch Periault.
Periault cruised to the line to claim her first ever WTCS win and her triumphant performance will remind the world that France will field three gold medal contenders in the women’s race in Paris this summer. Indeed it would appear one of the strongest teams in the world has just gotten even more formidable.
Crossing 36 seconds later, Knibb held off Lombardi in a late charge to take 2nd place. In a familiar rhyme to the 2023 WTCS, Lombardi then joined her compatriot on the podium as she took the bronze medal.
Spivey took an agonising 4th place as she narrowly missed out on automatic nomination to the American Olympic team. Likewise, Kasper placed 5th in a classy performance that was just a little short of what she needed to guarantee her slot at the Games. Godoy powered to a fantastic 6th placed ahead of Duffy while Arnold (8th), Lindemann (9th) and Waugh (10th) completed the top-10.
View the full results here.
