As a final word on the 2023 World Junior Championships, in this article we will dive into the stats and data that came out of the racing.
Looking back on Ilona Hadhoum’s win in the women’s race, which came on the back of field-leading swim and run splits, and Joao Nuno Batista joining his brother in becoming the World Junior champion, there were several key moments that stood out.
Read on below, then, to find where the significant moments arose.
Swim
The swim is an obvious place to start.
Ilona Hadhoum was totally dominant in the water and no one managed to get within 20 seconds of her. In the above swim time distribution, you can see that after Hadhoum exited (as the leader she was 0 seconds behind), the density of athletes dipped. It was not until the 20 second mark that the line rose to a notable degree. That was when the likes of Tabea Huys and Margareta Vrablova exited to form the initial chase pack.
As would be expected, the line continued to rise as more and more athletes completed the swim. Yet you may notice a slight levelling out of the graph between roughly the 25 and 30 second mark. This little plateau is significant as it essentially marked the cut-off for the athletes that were able to make it into the chase pack that set after Hadhoum.
Those that fell on the wrong side of the plateau were consigned to the next group on the road.
The time behind the leader is not the only relevant point, then. An important factor to go with it is how many athletes exit at the same time.
When it came to the largest pack on the road, the density of athletes peaked at the 45 second mark. From here, the biggest bike pack formed.
The men’s swim distribution graph has some similar lessons to the women’s graph.
Rather than a single athlete striking out ahead, the men’s field saw a small group of men push the pace in the water. For this reason, the starting density of athletes is higher for the men than the women.
Almost instantly, though, there was a very prominent dip in the density. After Gergő Gyula Soós exited in 9:05 (9 seconds down on the leaders), only 3 men emerged in the next 15 seconds. That split is what created the space for the ensuing breakaway.
The peak men’s swim concentration came a little later that the women’s race and was after the 50 second mark. That concentration of athletes would go on to produce the largest pack on the road. In turn, that group would go on to catch the chase pack on the bike.
Bike
There first thing to note is that there were multiple instances of timing chip errors in the Junior women’s race.
The most blatant instance of this can be found in Ilona Hadhoum’s bike splits. On the first lap, she was ridden down by a pack of five led by Tabea Huys (the orange line).
However on the second and third laps, Hadhoum’s chip did not properly function. As per the above chart, she lost 30 seconds to Huys and the lead group on the second lap when they actually rode together. Then, on the third lap, she made of the supposed time lost back with a massive split. Those that watched the race will know that the second and third laps did not unfold in this way.
Hadhoum’s times are therefore not just included but are highlighted to serve as a reminder that the times are not infallible and sometimes aspects can go wrong.
Fortunately, Hadhoum’s chip otherwise worked well and the number of athletes affected with timing problems was small.
One thing that stands out from the bike lap times is the consistency of Huys. She was at the front of the race for practically the entire bike. Similarly, Manami Hayashi was one of the best cyclists in the field. However, the bike times reveal how her crash at the end of the third lap ruined her day.
Each lap of the bike in the women’s race had a different story to tell.
In the opening lap, a pack of five athletes (Tabea Huys, Manon Laporte, Leonie Douche, Margareta Vrablova and Nora Romina Nádas) worked to close down the lead of Ilona Hadhoum. By the end of the lap, the quintet had managed to catch the leader and established themselves as the front pack.
Note that, due to Douche’s malfunctioning timing chip, her data does not appear. As a result, the bubble on the plot says 5 when the pack actually contained 6 athletes.
As the front pack came together, they piled the pressure onto the chasers.
The second lap then proved consequential for the chase pack. Whereas at the end of lap one, a group of 23 pursued the leaders, with another of 9 on their tail, the efforts of the second lap saw those numbers drop considerably. The second bike lap therefore ended the hopes of several athletes. Of all the laps, it was perhaps the most impactful in whittling down the field.
By the third lap, the lead group had distanced themselves from the chasers. However the crash of Manami Hayashi reduced the number of athletes at the front by 1.
After Hayashi hit the deck, the lead pack became visibly nervous and another crash soon followed. On the last lap, Nádas, Alexandra Field, Olivia Logan Ruth Pardy went down in a crash and were lost from the lead group. Once the group settled, though, they were able to extend their advantage over the chase to beyond 100 seconds.
The biggest takeaway from the men’s bike splits was that Carter Stuhlmacher essentially lost the World Junior title on first bike lap. Having emerged as the joint-fastest swimmer, the American was perfectly placed to capitalise. However, he was almost 15 seconds slower than Zalán Hóbor, a core part of the breakaway, on the opening lap.
In the end, Hóbor dropped a split of 26:05 on the bike. Meanwhile, Stuhlmacher ended up recording a time of 26:47. Seeing as he dropped a fast run split to take 7th place, Stuhlmacher had a real shot at winning the race. The window was open for him on the bike and presented him with the kind of opportunity that virtually no one else had.
Athletes like Pelayo González Turrez and Luke Anthony were also able to make up almost a minute on Stuhlmacher after the swim.
The fireworks on the bike, though, came from the front. Hóbor was a real driving force of the breakaway and worked to stay clear with Jack Crome, Gregor Rasva and Márton Kropkó. Interestingly, Hóbor and his companions were actually often out-split in the first half of the bike. In the second half, though, they really hammered home their advantage.
Their biggest gain came on the last lap wherein they showed what a committed break can do when they wear down the will of the chase behind.
On the note of the breakaway’s fast final lap on the bike, the above bubble plots show how the leaders managed to pull further ahead of the chase. Even as the two chase packs came together, the leaders added to the gap.
That being said, there is a degree to which the coming together of the chase packs benefitted the breakaway. As the chase group exceeded 40 men, the pack lost a lot of momentum. A case can be made that the group became too big and inefficient. With plenty of other people to pick up the slack, several men opted to save their legs for the running race to come.
That loss of impetus is what helped the leaders.
If you look back to the lap times, Hóbor did not actually get quicker on the last lap. He simply maintained his speed. By contrast, the likes of Thomas Hansmaennel and Nils Serre Gehri clocked the slowest laps of their race as the chase bunched together.
Run
The splits of the run at the World Junior Championships were a fairly simple affair. In both the men’s and women’s races, the three fastest runners were the ones to win the medals.
One thing that stood out, though, was how spread out the field became over the course of the run.
On that front, both races were rather similar.
In both events, the rise of the distribution line was almost the same until around 70 seconds after the leader finished. Thereafter, the men’s curve was a lot smoother while the women’s curve had a dip before rising again.
