The Olympic distance was the order of the day as international triathlon returned to China for the first time since 2019.
With Olympians and athletes with Continental Cup medals to their name already this year on the start lines, both the men’s and women’s races held a lot of promise before the starter’s gun sounded.
Men’s race
A group of Chinese athletes led in the water with Jiaxing Li, still a Junior, setting the pace. Li emerged in a time of 17:33, with only two athletes within 5 seconds of him.
While he had extended the field, Li had not fully broken clear. As a result a long line of men followed into T1. Yunfeng Teng was the second man out of the water while further down the field the likes of Tamás Tóth, Nanhe Wang, Kye Wydle and Max Studer tried to limit their losses.
On the bike, the line of athletes quickly bunched together into a large pack as the likes of Studer and Kurt Wesley worked their way into the group and set the pace. Studer would go on to log the joint fastest split on the bike.
With the Hong Kong duo Jason Tai Long Ng and Oscar Coggins also in the front group, all of the favourites navigated the first half of the race unscathed.
A fast T2 saw Studer and Wesley dart ahead on the run; after Studer’s recent personal best finish at WTCS Abu Dhabi, it seemed a fair guess to assume he would run clear to victory.
However, Mingxu Li, Wang and Teng were each onto him within the first few hundred metres. Gradually, the front group was thinned as Ng, Wesley and Wylde each lost contact. Once Tóth lost touch, too, it was a five man race at the front.
Junjie Fan was the next to slip from the group and as the finish neared Studer made his move. He pulled clear with only Mingxu Li able to keep him within striking distance. As they lost valuable seconds, Wang managed to move clear of Teng to gain control of 3rd, but he could not bridge the gap.
Li continued to push but Studer simply had too much. While both men logged identical run splits (31:06), Studer took the win by 6 seconds ahead of Li.
Women’s race
The story of the swim was about one woman. Yifan Yang was brilliant in the water and swam over 30 seconds better than the next quickest athlete. At the World U23 Championships in November, she had been the only athlete able to get close to Bianca Seregni in the swim, so her talent in the water was no surprise.
Nonetheless, when she ran into T1 with a 34 second lead over the winner of the Hong Kong Asia Cup, Xinyu Lin, her margin was somewhat unexpected.
With only Yuan Yuan for company, Lin set about hunting Yang down. Further behind, the rest of the field were still trying to work out what had just happened.
Pre-race favourite Xisca Tous lost 58 seconds to Yang in the swim, while Ivana Kuriackova, who had swam so well in her Americas Cup swing of races, was 1 minute 18 seconds back.
In the early stages of the bike, a few of the athletes were a little shell-shocked by the swim but Karolina Horváth, Kuriackova and Anqi Huang set about chasing the leaders.
Up front, Lin and Yuan caught Yang to form a front pack of three. With 40km to ride, though, they would have their work cut out to hold off a chase group of twelve women. Their lead was cut to 45 seconds, then to 30.
Lin hit the front repeatedly to inject greater impetus into the front pack but the group of Huang, Horváth, Tous and Kuriackova would not slow. With Bailee Brown of Hong Kong and Alanis Siffert of Switzerland also taking some big turns, the chase pack reduced the gap to 15 seconds. Soon after, the game was up.
Before arriving into T2, the two packs came together. In the final stages of the bike, no one quite seemed able to make any further attacks after the mammoth efforts already produced.
Indeed, several athletes, including Lin, Yuan and Horváth, paid for their efforts early on the run.
Huang was the quickest through T2 but soon had Tous, Yang and Kuriackova for company. After Yang had shown what she was capable of in the swim, though, it was Huang’s turn on the run. She turned on the afterburners to pull away from the trio and did not look back.
With a 10km split of 35:31, she was almost a minute faster than the next best split and won the race in comfort.
In the race for silver, Yang summoned a second wind and out-duelled Tous at the finish to take 2nd by 6 seconds. By that point, Huang had been finished for 62 seconds.
Kuriackova lost contact during the run and ultimately took 4th place, a minute behind Yang and over 2 minutes behind Huang.
View the full results here.
