Swim, Bike and Rerun: double gold at 2016 Paratriathlon World Championships

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Rotterdam hosted the 2016 championships, with British athletes winning two gold, one silver and one bronze medal.

With paratriathlon making its Paralympic debut in Rio that year, eleven of ParalympicsGB’s thirteen paratriathletes competed in Rotterdam in a stand-alone championships in July 2016.

Following their success at the European Championships, Alison Patrick (PT5), Andy Lewis (PT2), Lizzie Tench (PT1) and Lauren Steadman (PT4) all headed to the Netherlands to try and add to their wins earlier in the year.

With a convincing win, Lewis was able to gain his first world title, crossing the line almost two minutes faster than Mark Barr of the USA. Coming out of the water behind the American, Lewis had a quicker transition to jump ahead of him.

Lewis also showed superior speed on the bike and run legs to increase his lead and win the gold medal, his compatriot Ryan Taylor came across the line in fifth.

Above: Lewis backed up his European win with gold at the World Championships. - Credit: Janos M. Schmidt

Also adding to her European title and, having come second in 2015, reclaiming her crown from 2014 was Alison Patrick.

Guided by Hazel Smith, Patrick’s superior swim and run times saw her beat home athlete, Joleen Hakker, by 25 seconds with fellow Brit Melissa Reid (guided by Nicola Waters) coming third.

Reid was the first athlete out of the swim, closely followed by Patrick, and was able to claim the final podium spot comfortably ahead of Rodriguez (ESP) in fourth.

Tench, who’s category wasn’t included in the Rio Games, was able to add world silver to her European gold, with British gold to come later in the year.

In a race dominated by Kendall Gretsch (USA) from start to finish, Tench produced a consistent performance across all three disciplines to win the silver medal in Rotterdam.

Having been unbeaten for more than two years, Steadman faced her biggest rival for gold in Rio, Grace Norman (USA), who’d come second to the Brit at the 2015 World Championships, in Rotterdam.

Having had a typically fast swim to enter T1 almost ten seconds ahead of the American, Steadman crashed out on the first lap of the bike to record a DNF, with Norman running the fastest run split to take gold.

Having dominated the category for the previous few years on the world and European stage, there were no Brits on the podium in 2016 as Kerry Large finished fifth and former world champion Faye McClelland came eighth.

Soon-to-be Paralympians, Joe Townsend and Phil Hogg, both raced for Great Britain in the PT1 category that was won by home favourite, Jetze Platt.

Townsend and Hogg finished fifth and sixth, respectively, with the former recording the second fastest run split of the race.

Competing for Britain in the PT4 category were George Peasgood and Steven Crowley. Despite having come out of the water second and recording the third fastest bike time of the day, Peasgood finished the race in twelfth, with Crowley finishing fourteenth.

You can watch a round-up of the action from the 2016 Paratriathlon World Championships from the ITU below.

WATCH THE ROUND UP

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