The Debuts
Two months after officially changing his sporting nationality to British, Max Stapley made his WTCS debut. He therefore had the opportunity to make his first start at a home event and make the most of the domestic support.
Stapley swam well and managed to make it into the breakaway on the bike. From there, he pulled several turns and was regularly towards the front of the pack. His efforts on the bike told a little as he drifted to 31st over the course of the run.
Nevertheless, he can take plenty of encouragement from not simply participating in a first WTCS race but actively being a part of shaping the race.
Meanwhile, the only debutant in the women’s event was María Casals Mojica of Spain.
Casals got off to a solid start as she emerged from the water in a time of 9:51, 35 seconds down on the leaders. That put her in the middle of the field and she soon had her compatriot Miriam Casillas Garcia for company on the bike.
However, Casals did not have the best day on the bike and fell behind. She then recovered with a decent run split to take 41st place.
Earlier in July, Casals won the Spanish Championships and won a bronze medal at the European Cup in Kitzbühel in June. She will therefore be an athlete to watch over the coming years.
The Personal Bests
Fresh off a personal best finish at WTCS Hamburg, Annika Koch went even better in Sunderland.
Two weeks ago, she landed a brilliant 4th place in her home WTCS race, which was a massive improvement on her previous best of 20th. A case could have been made that the home support gave Koch a boost. After all, German athletes have generally performed better in Hamburg than abroad.
However, Koch showed there was even more to come as she claimed a fantastic bronze medal in Sunderland.
Koch managed to sneak into the front pack out of T2 and from there stuck with leaders. When the chase group eventually caught the front pack, it seemed Koch’s chance of a medal may have slipped. However, she produced a mature run to earn a new best finish.
Her run split of 16:34 was also only 1 second slower than that of Emma Lombardi, the silver medallist. The gap between silver and bronze largely therefore came from Lombardi’s superior positioning into T2 and the transition itself.
Prior to the race, we had flagged Julie Derron as an athlete that could do well in Sunderland based on her cheat sheet data.
In her first WTCS race of the season, the Swiss athlete proved to be in fine form as she logged her best ever result in the Series. Although she spent much of the bike in the chase pack, she was at the forefront of her group and played a big part in catching the lead pack. She then dropped an impressive 5km split to seal 7th place.
After the recent WTCS personal bests of Cathia Schär, Switzerland now has a second woman on the rise which bodes well for their Mixed Team Relay.
Lizeth Rueda Santos also continued her march towards the WTCS top-10 as she finished 14th. Like Koch, she made it into the breakaway and held on to the lead group until they were caught.
The biggest improvement of the field came from Anne Holm of Denmark.
Holm has had to fight her way back from injury this season and her efforts have been rewarded with a best WTCS result. Following her injury, her running has not quite where she may have hoped. One takeaway from that, though, is she has plenty of space to improve even further still. With an uninterrupted block of training behind her, Holm can certainly look towards breaking into the top-20.
Brea Roderick logged a best finish to improve upon her debut performance in Montreal. World Cup medallist Gina Sereno also made a notable jump in her best finish as she came close to entering the top-30 for the first time.
Tilda Månsson and Noémi Sárszegi improved on their previous best finishes which came at WTCS Hamburg earlier in the month.
The obvious talking point when it comes to personal best finishes is Pierre Le Corre. The winner in Sunderland dropped his best WTCS display at the ripe age of thirty-three. You can read more about his rise to the top of the podium here.
Barclay Izzard was the best of the British team as he earned a spot in the top-10 for the first time. Like his teammate Stapley, Izzard featured prominently at the front of the lead pack. He also made one memorable dart away from the leaders that forced Leo Bergere to chase him.
After his work on the bike, Izzard narrowly missed dipping under the 15 minute mark for the 5km (he ran 15:01). That was enough, though, to make a five place improvement on his previous best.
Having established his personal best earlier in the season, Valentin Wernz lowered it again in Sunderland. The German athlete made the same improvement of two places as Dylan McCullough and both athletes inched closer to maiden top-10 finishes.
On another day, Sergio Baxter Cabrera would have broken into the top-10 in Sunderland. However a penalty put paid to that. Still, he left with a new best finish and showed several promising flashes of talent in his race.
In the first part of the run, he stayed with Vasco Vilaca and looked in fine fettle. After a lengthy lay-off through injury, Baxter is starting to near his best form once more and should be in top shape when the WTCS returns for the Final in Pontevedra in September.
As it happens Baxter won a World Cup race for the first time last year in Pontevedra. At the Final, then, it would be a smart bet to expect Baxter to break into the top-10 for the first time.
Jack Willis ensured that all three British men starting appeared in either the debuts or personal bests columns. He made one of the biggest improvements of the field as he took 20th.
Ren Sato, Arnaud Mengal and Tyler Smith all also earned best finishes with the latter pair breaking into the top-30 for the first time.
