Swim
The swim was a key component in setting up the men’s race in Yeongdo as only seven men dipped under 9 minutes for the 750m.
Max Stapley led the way into T1, along with Aiden Longcroft-Harris, in a time of 8:55. Trent Thorpe, Daniel Dixon and Kyotaro Yoshikawa followed in 8:57 while Takumi Hojo and Valentin Wernz were the other men under 9 minutes in 8:58 and 8:59, respectively.
Stefan Zachaeus was the next man out in 9:03. Along with a couple of others, he was able to make it into the front pack. The next two athletes to exit the water, Michal Oliwa and Aleksander Kurishov, both swam 9:05 however they did not make the front pack.
Meanwhile, Zuzana Michalickova was the top swimmer in the women’s race. Her time of 9:43 earned her a 3 second gap over Márta Kropkó and stretched the rest of the field.
Sophia Howell and Desirae Ridenour followed in 9:48 while Yuka Sato and Sara Vilic both split 9:50. Annika Koch was the last woman to make it into the front group with a time of 9:52. Thereafter, a 6 second gap emerged until Niina Kishimoto exited. Unlike the men’s race, though, the split in the swim did not result in a complete breakaway.
Bike
The four fastest male bike splits all went to athletes that did not swim under 9 minutes but were nonetheless able to get into the front pack.
Oscar Dart, Jumpei Furuya, Tjebbe Kaindl and Zachaeus all rode up to the leaders with splits ranging between 25:37 and 25:39.
The rest of the top-10 bike splits were achieved by the those that had been in the initial front group out of the water. Daniel Dixon hit 25:44, while Yoshikawa hit 25:45. Max Stapley and Trent Thorpe both recorded splits of 25:46 and Hojo and Wernz completed the bike in 25:47.
Whereas the breakaway produced the fastest times in the men’s race, the chase pack overhauled the front group in the women’s event.
Erica Hawley, the bronze medallist, led the way with a split of 28:46. While none of the leading seven women out of the water broke under the 29 minute mark on the bike, twelve women in the chase pack managed to do so. Moreover, Kishimoto and Ji Yeon Kim hit 29:00 exactly.
Sofia Rodriguez Moreno, Romana Gajdošová and Charlotte Derbyshire rounded out the top-4 splits with Noémi Sárszegi and Miyu Sakai sharing the fifth fastest split in a time of 28:51.
Koch was the top cyclist from the original lead pack with a time of 29:06.
Run
Hojo was the best runner of the front pack. His split of 14:56 saw him cruise to victory by 23 seconds. However, he was not the fastest man of the day.
Callum McClusky and Makoto Odakura had been consigned to the chase pack earlier in the race but were able to rally on the run. With splits of 14:43 and 14:44, respectively, they broke into the top-10 overall.
The silver medallist, Stapley, only actually recorded the ninth fastest split in 15:17. Several men managed to out-run him (and Wernz, the bronze medallist). Yet the damage had been done earlier in the race.
Martin Sobey hit a time of 15:00 to take the fourth fastest split while Arnaud Mengal was only 1 second slower.
The women’s race likewise saw the top split come from an athlete not in the front group. Anahi Alvarez Corral, the winner of the World Cup in Huatulco, did not have a great swim and bike and so found herself several minutes behind heading into T2. She nevertheless ripped a 16:44 5km to move up to 33rd.
Koch, the race winner, was the only other athlete able to run under 17 minutes as she clocked 16:51.
Rodriguez and Gajdošová followed in 17:01 and 17:02 while the fifth fastest split went to Ekaterina Shabalina in 17:05. Like Alvarez, she did not make the front pack and so had to use the run to make up ground. Despite her fast split (in which she out-ran Hawley by 1 second), Shabalina only crossed the line in 21st overall.
