It was a triumphant day for GB’s juniors in Hungary at the weekend, as Georgia Taylor-Brown took gold at the ETU Junior European Cup in Tiszaujvaros, while fellow Brit Sophie Coldwell ran in second for silver.
Marking another confident performance for the reigning European Junior Champion, Taylor-Brown posted a time of 40:49mins (42secs ahead of Coldwell) over the 500m swim-12km bike-3.2km run course.
“It’s such a good atmosphere here and it was great to get a good blast out before the Worlds,” said Taylor-Brown. “I ran hard into transition and then me, Sophie and Hollie [Grice, AUS] worked really hard on the bike and got a good pace on. It was a really good race.”
The men’s race was far closer, with local favourites Kristof Anheuer and Mark Devay emerging first from the water, followed hotly by GB’s Gordon Benson and Grant Sheldon.
A tight finish in the run saw Sheldon sprinting hard against Adrien Briffod [SUI] and Istvan Kiraly (HUN), with the Swiss athlete breaking the tape with a time of 37:23mins – one second ahead of Sheldon.
Briffod commented post race: “I attacked on the run and gave it everything I had. I ran so fast, it was a good sprint – I have never had to sprint like that before and I’m really happy.”