Sophie Coldwell won bronze in the women’s U23 event at the ITU World Championships in Rotterdam. Georgia Taylor-Brown, Sian Rainsley and Gordon Benson all reached the top ten.

Racing on Saturday morning with rain bouncing off the course, Coldwell was one of the fastest swimmers and charged into and out of the first transition ready to take on the cobbles, twists and turns of Rotterdam’s wet roads. Georgia Taylor-Brown and Sian Rainsley were right behind her and the three Brits helped establish a lead group of thirteen athletes that stayed away from the rest throughout the 40km bike ride.

Coldwell got into an early lead, but that position was soon taken up by USA’s former world junior champion, Tamara Gorman. Taylor-Brown was running well, but had a 15 second penalty to serve for an infringement at the first transition.

Gorman ran brilliantly to take the world title after the 10km run and Portugal’s Melanie Santos overtook Coldwell for silver. Coldwell was delighted to claim the bronze, she said: “I can’t believe that I finally got a medal at a world championships.”

She added: “The plan was to keep towards the front on the bike and that worked well. I’ve missed a bit of running in the last couple of weeks but I tried to keep focusing and hold on for that medal.”

Taylor-Brown crossed the line in fourth looking exhausted and was followed by Rainsley in ninth.

Yesterday’s U23 men’s race featured Gordon Benson, Calum Johnson and Sam Dickinson. The Leeds based trio started late into the afternoon and it was almost dark, and very cold, by the time they finished.

Frenchmen Raphael Montoya and Dorian Coninx dominated the race to win gold and silver after Benson had put in some big efforts at the front of the leading bike pack. Benson finished seventh, disappointed that cramp and cold feet impacted his ability to run as well as he would have liked.

Johnson finished 24^th and Dickinson was 26^th in his first Olympic distance triathlon. At 20 years old he has three more years to race at this level.