Jess Learmonth and Georgia Taylor-Brown continued to show their strength by securing silver and bronze respectively in Lausanne and secure the same positions in the overall rankings of the World Triathlon Series.
The women’s Elite race was the most anticipated race of the second day of the Grand Final with five athletes in contention of winning including Jess Learmonth, Georgia Taylor-Brown and Non Stanford.
In her typical style, Learmonth left the swim in first place and started the bike leg with a ten-second lead on the chase group which featured Taylor-Brown and Sophie Coldwell.
The lead pack soon became a group of seven athletes with World Series leaders Katie Zaferes, Learmonth and Taylor-Brown in good positions.
The Brits left T2 alongside Zaferes and it soon became an exciting head-to-head but with one lap to go on the run it was Learmonth trying to break the American.
Zaferes had too much in the tank though and took the race victory and the overall World Series title ahead of Learmonth. Taylor-Brown came in third place.
“It was a tough race out there today,” Learmonth said. “We were preparing for Tokyo but the course today was hard. I’m delighted with the performance and the overall result. I’m delighted for Georgia too. There were some really strong performances out there today.”
“I found it quite warm and I didn’t feel great on the bike to be honest,” Taylor-Brown said. “I’m so happy with the overall result tho. I couldn’t have asked for anything more this year. This whole year was all about Olympic selection and the Tokyo Test Event so to get on the podium again is amazing and to share it with Jess is even better.”
Coldwell finished in 13th place while Vicky Holland crossed the line in 18th place and Beth Potter finished in 28th place. Non Stanford did not finish after coming off her bike.
Jonny Brownlee suffered an unlucky collision in T2 which caused him to fall out of contention for a medal in the men’s Grand Final race.
The multi-Olympic medallist exited the swim in a strong position and left T1 in a large leading pack which continued to look dominant throughout the bike leg.
It was in T2 that a collision with Marten Van Riel (BEL) caused him to fall down the rankings as the race entered the run portion.
The Leeds-based athlete managed to pull himself back up the rankings and finished in eighth place overall.
“I’m disappointed with that result today,” Brownlee said. “I felt good and I thought I was in a position to get a good result. I thought the bike course was going to hurt everyone today and that’s normally good for me. It all just happened in transition. I was in the right place but I was unlucky. Van Riel got pushed out and he put his foot through my front wheel and then my bike went flying. I tried to catch up but I had nothing left after trying to catch up the field.”
Alex Yee exited the swim towards the back of the race before fighting hard on the bike leg and excelled in his run to get back into 13th place.
“I’m pretty chuffed to have fought back to 13th after my swim,” Yee said. “On the last lap, I overtook five or six people which ws such a surprise. That’s really good. I just kept pushing and knew people would drop back. I paced my effort a bit better today. At the end of the day I’m really pleased.”
