Karlovy Vary is a great course.
It has something for everyone and the racing at the World Cup saw some of the most races of 2023 unfold. The most obvious factor in the topsy-turvy racing is the whopping hill on each of the seven bike laps. Yet the bike also has plenty of technical sections, such as descents that lead directly into tight corners.
The swim does not appear the most complicated on paper. All too often, though, it has provided perfect conditions to buoy the fastest swimmers and help them generate a break into T1. Then there is the run. Like the bike course, it has topographical elements to keep matters interesting and is a tough, honest course.
It was therefore no surprise that Gwen Jorgensen ran over a minute slower than she did at the Valencia World Cup a week prior.
With so much to unpack from the races, read on to find the full statistical breakdown of the Karlovy Vary World Cup.
The Race Developments
Women
Men
The men’s race development plot really shows how Karlovy Vary turned into the Morgan Pearson Show (patent pending). When only four men finish within 2 minutes of you, you know you’re doing something right.
The Swims
Women
Given how broken up the women’s field was into T1, it should come as no surprise that the swim distribution looks fairly wacky.
After the lead quartet of Therese Feuersigner, Bianca Seregni, Sophie Alden and Selina Klamt exited, the density of athletes flatlined for 40 seconds.
Thereafter, the concentration rose and fell to create a really interesting mountain range effect. More often than not, swim distributions are quite curved and build to one or two smooth peaks without any sudden falls. Sometimes a front group can escape, as was the case in Karlovy Vary. What happened next, though, was out of the norm. For a comparable Olympic distance swim distribution, you can view the graphic from WTCS Cagliari here.
Men
The men’s swim distribution also shows how piecemeal the field was into T1.
There was no dramatic dip early on the same manner as the women’s field. Instead, the most prominent drop in density came after the minute mark. On the surface it would be tempting to say that anyone that exited after that dip had their race written off. However, that was not the case.
Maxime Fluri was one of the last men out of the water in 17:50, 1 minute 28 seconds off the lead. However, he rallied to take 9th place.
Even with the swim shaking up the race, then, Karlovy Vary held plenty of subsequent twists.
The Bikes
Women
The first “lap” of the women’s bike reflects the 6.5km section to get from the lake into the town. The subsequent seven laps were the 4.9km loop of the town. The difference in distance thus explains the “slow” first lap.
What is interesting is how the packs generally matched on another’s piece in the opening section.
The front pack containing Feuersinger and Seregni were slightly out-split by Derron as she made it into the chase pack. Schär was considerably further down the field but matched Derron’s speed as one of the fastest women on the first section.
From there, Derron went to work. Along with Klamer and the chase group, she was one of the quickest cyclists on laps 2 and 3 which saw them catch the leaders. Indeed, you can see how Seregni and Feuersinger did not push the same pace during those laps.
However, from lap 5, the entire field seemed to stabilise. The Schär-led group actually matched the front pack, even though they were over 90 seconds down.
As a result, the most significant laps on the women’s bike appeared to laps 2 and 3.
You can see the stabilisation in pack size following the end of the third lap in the above graphic. Until then, the field was rather fragmented and lacked cohesion.
The stability of the later laps, though, should not be confused for an easy pace. The face that the chase group (the bubble that was almost 100 seconds behind) regularly shed riders speaks to a high tempo being set throughout.
Men
The opening section of the men’s bike was similar to that of the women’s bike. For the most part, the field was well-matched and no one drastically out-split anyone else.
Once the packs hit the town, the picture changed.
The Pearson-Schomburg front pack rode together for the first few laps at a very consistent pace. Behind, the Henseleit-Wernersen chase group were frequently quicker.
The fourth lap proved crucial for the chasers. Although they lost Wernersen, they really ramped up the pace, as seen by Henseleit’s split. That enabled them to close the gap to the leaders.
On the fifth lap, they successfully bridged to the leaders, however that only inspired Pearson to attack. On laps 6, 7 and 8, the American was much faster than the lead group and earned a solid lead from his efforts.
In another contrast to the women’s race, note the line of Barclay Izzard. As part of the group behind the chasers, Izzard is a good substitute for Cathia Schär in the women’s race. Whereas the Schär group matched the leaders at many points, the Izzard group lost time on almost every lap.
The above bubble plot reflects the lap time developments. Pearson’s attack can be visualised from lap 6 onwards.
Interestingly, once the multiple bubbles seen at the end of lap 5 merged to form one big chase group, the chasers were able to stem the loss of time a little more effectively. The final lap was therefore the only one in which they did not lose time to those at the front of the race.
The Runs
Women
One of the most interesting features of the women’s run was Gomez-Göggel’s final lap. At the end of lap 3, she served a 15 second penalty, which explains why her pace slowed. Perhaps the penalty helped her in a counter-intuitive way as her final lap was exceptional. Maybe there is something beneficial to having a short breather before launching a big final lap, although it probably is not the most advisable strategy.
Bravo was another athlete to have a brilliant final lap and she used to it propel herself into the top-15. By contrast, Hauser used a fast first lap to gain ground and move up the field before slowing later on.
The women’s run time distribution was not very smooth which speaks to the presence of lots of gaps between the splits. The graph thus does not build to a peak in the middle of the field to show a more classic “average” time. Instead, it shows how the running times were much more spread, which suggests the course really fractured the field.
Men
Pearson did not earn the fastest run split of the day. Based on the run lap times, though, he could have had he pushed the final lap a little more. After all, for the first two laps he was the fastest man on the course. Instead, he opted to celebrate an impressive victory and share plenty of high-fives.
The fastest split came from Izzard and a lot of his performance stemmed from a brilliant final two laps. Whereas Pearson had the best first half, Izzard had the best second half.
One point to flag is the run of Knabl. On the surface, his lap times do not necessarily look like those of an athlete that finished in the top-5. You can see that several athletes out-spit him at multiple junctures.
However, Knabl took 4th place in a great performance after setting up his race in the first two disciplines.
That may encapsulate the beauty of Karlovy Vary more than anything. It is not a course that favours any one discipline and those that succeeded were strong in all three.
The men’s run time distribution comes a little closer than the women’s in building towards a clear median. The greatest concentration of athletes ran around 120 seconds slower than the top athlete. Even then, the line is a little craggier than what would sometimes be seen.
All in all, then, Karlovy Vary is one the outstanding venues on the World Triathlon calendar and the data above highlights how the race was almost perfectly balanced across the three disciplines.
