Sam Dickinson won Great Britain’s first elite medal of the ITU World Championships on the Gold Coast, Australia, with a brilliant silver in the men’s U23 event. The race was won by New Zealand’s Tayler Reid, and the women’s event was won by another Taylor, USA’s Taylor Knibb.

Dickinson, 21 from Leeds, had to work hard coming out of the choppy 1500m swim to make up a deficit to the leaders. The effort paid off perfectly. He said: "After being just off the pace during the swim I had to dig so deep on the first bike lap to make the break, but I’m glad I did as it gave me the opportunity to run for a medal and get on the podium.”

Reid was too strong for the rest on the run, pulling away after 8km leaving Dickinson to battle with Frenchman, Leo Bergere for silver and bronze. Dickinson briefly faltered at 9km, but recovered and pulled away to claim silver. Hungary’s Bence Bicsak caught Bergere in the final metres to snatch bronze.

He added: “That’s one of the hardest races I’ve ever been a part of, but World Championship racing is always something special! I’m so happy to come away with a silver medal.”

In 35^thplace at the start of the 10km run, Alex Yee ran through to tenth place with a stunning split of 30.01. Having only just moved out of the junior ranks, he and Barclay Izzard, who finished 15^th, have bright futures ahead of them. 

Mathias heads British U23 women

After a convincing solo effort on the bike, Knibb was a deserving winner of the women’s U23 race. Loughborough’s Sophie Alden got things well under way, leading out of the swim, but Knibb soon took charge and had an unassailable three-minute lead at the start of the 10km run.

All still with at least two more years to race at U23 level, Oliva Mathias, Sian Rainsley and Alden finished 13^th, 15^thand 21^st respectively. This was Rainsley’s first race of the year having balanced her training with managing Chron’s disease.