A faultless performance from Alex Yee sees Great Britain retain the ITU Duathlon Junior World Championship in Spain while Kate Waugh adds to the weekend Elite medal haul with Silver in the Junior Women’s race.

Last weekend Alex Yee and Kate Waugh were part of the Gold medal winning Junior Mixed Relay team at the ETU Junior European Championships in Lisbon. Once week on, they swapped Portugal for Spain, European for World Championship, and team medals for individuals ones.

Alex Yee was quite simply flawless in his execution of a tactically perfect race. In truth, he looked like the Gold medal winner in waiting from 100metres in to the first run. An international class runner, Yee pushed the pace over the first 5km but was careful not to over exert himself. Breaking the field up, he forced a leading group of five including two Spanish and two Belgian athletes. A perfect sized group and all strong cyclists, they worked well together and there was no way back for anyone else.

The fastest runner in the field, Yee needed to reach T2 safely and then let his feet do the talking, which he did brilliantly and with a swift transition it looked like a battle for Silver and Bronze from the very start. Both of those medals went to Spain; the British athlete was in a different class over the final 2.5km and never troubled on his way to Gold. If ever there was a textbook application of tactics, this was it.

“I’m over the moon. I looked to string it out on the first but to stay as comfortable as possible. I was really lucky, they were all prepared to work on the bike and there was no attacking which you sees a lot in duathlon. That lead me nicely in to T2 and I had the most out of everyone left! I couldn’t ask for much more, I delivered and I’m pretty stunned.”

In the woman’s junior event, Kate Waugh arrived in T1 alongside Madalena Amaral Almeida (ESP), the pairing around 30 seconds back on Switzerland’s Delia Sclabas. Working well together, they soon closed that deficit and by T2 is was a trio of athletes at the front of the race with a significant margin over a chase back, which included Serena O’Connor.

A slow T2 left the Swiss athlete off the pace over the opening kilometre and gave hope that the Briton could take Gold in the first race of the day. However, showing the speed of the opening run, Sclabas was soon back in front and would arrive at the finish line with a clear margin of victory. Together through the whole race, Waugh won the battle with the Portuguese athlete to take the World Silver to add to last weeks European Gold.

“I’m so pleased with a Silver medal. The pace was hard from the beginning. The tried to push away on the last lap (of the bike) but I was caught. On the run I thought I was going for the win at one point but I can’t be disappointed with second.’

ITU Duathlon World Championships – Saturday 4 June 2016
ELITE JUNIOR – 5km / 20km / 2.5km

WOMN

1^st – Delia Sclabas (SUI) – 58:55
2^nd – Kate Waugh (GBR) – 59:14
3^rd – Madalena Amaral Almeida (ESP) – 59:16

6^th – Serena O’Connor (GBR) – 1:02:28

MEN

1^st – Alex Yee (GBR) – 51:40
2^nd – Alberto Gonzalez Garcia (ESP) – 51:50

3^rd – Javier Lluch Perez (ESP) – 52:06

19^th – Lewis Byram (GBR) – 55:30