Britain's Georgia Taylor-Brown took her first World Triathlon Championship Series (WTCS) win of 2023 after an expertly-executed race at Cagliari in Sardinia.
The double Olympic medallist looked comfortable as she stayed in the front pack in the swim and bike before demonstrating her run pedigree to make a break on the final leg and take the tape ahead of France's Emma Lombardi.
How the race unfolded
The athletes lined up in beautiful conditions, with an air temperature of 23C and a water temperature of 20.7C, with not a wetsuit in sight.
Notable absentees included series leader Sophie Coldwell, who'd decided to give this event a miss after winning in Yokohama earlier in the month, and Taylor Knibb, who is still recovering after contracting Covid-19 after Yokohama.
Arguably, though, a lot of the attention focused on who was racing rather than who wasn't, with 2016 Olympic gold medallist Gwen Jorgensen (USA) lining up for her first standard distance race since that year.
Also on the start line was fellow American Katie Zaferes, returning to racing on the World Series following the birth of her child in July.
The strong field also included Brits Taylor-Brown and Beth Potter, Frenchwomen Cassandre Beaugrand and Lombardi (who finished second here in 2022), and a strong contingent from the USA including Taylor Spivey and Summer Rappaport.
What happened in the swim?
Much of the field made short work of the beach start and two main arrowheads quickly formed at the start of the two-lap 1,500m swim.
The two groups came together as they approached the first buoy with Rappaport leading the pack, with Vittoria Lopes (BRA) and Maya Kingma (NED) hot on her heels.
The Aussie exit gave us a chance to see how things were playing out throughout the field and it soon became apparent that the likes of Lombardi, Potter and Taylor-Brown were close to the front, all within 11secs of the lead.
Jorgensen, meanwhile, was toward the back of the pack some 45secs down.
Over the course of the second lap Lopes made her way to the front of the pack and a small gap started to emerge between the first six athletes and the rest of the group.
Lopes emerged onto the beach first, followed by Rappaport, Lombardi, Kingma, Spivey and Taylor-Brown.
Potter, who was with that lead pack in the first lap, came out of the swim in 25th, having lost some 38secs to the lead over the second 750m.
What happened in the bike?
The lack of wetsuits made for a super quick transition (around 38secs) and the lead pack were quickly onto the flat but technical 10-lap bike course.
Lombardi was quick to push to the front with a small gap, but was quickly pulled in by the chasing quintet, with the six athletes quickly working together thereafter.
A large chase group followed some 23secs back, with the likes of Potter, Zaferes and Beaugrand part of it.
By the end of lap four that gap had grown to 41secs, and it continued to increase over the course of the bike leg.
On lap nine it had grown to 1min 15secs, but there were some strong runners in that group – could they make up the deficit on the run and make it into the mix for the podium?
The lead group arrived in transition together and left together, spending just 22secs in T2. They were followed in by the chase group who came into transition 1min 22 seconds down.
What happened in the run?
Within minutes of being on the four-lap 10km run the front pack split, first breaking into two groups of three, with Taylor-Brown, Rappaport and Lombardi leading the way.
Rappaport soon dropped off as Taylor-Brown set a strong pace early on, with only Lombardi able to stay with her at this point.
By the end of the first lap the duo had 21secs over Rappaport, with Spivey a further seven second back but gaining. Beaugrand looked to be the best of the chase group and began to reel in Lopes.
At the end of lap two the leading duo had 36secs over Spivey, who passed Rappaport halfway through the lap and quickly put eight seconds into her.
By this point Beaugrand had moved up to fifth, some 29secs down on Rappaport, while Potter was pushing on in eighth.
Over the course of lap three the Frenchwoman was joined by Jeanne Lehair (LUX) and the duo caught and passed the American.
Next up the road? Spivey, some 23secs ahead. Behind them? Potter, some 19secs back.
In the early stages of the final lap Taylor-Brown made her move and upped the pace, quickly creating a gap back to Lombardi who appeared unable to respond.
The Brit increased that gap to around 14secs throughout the lap and from this point the win never looked in doubt, crossing the line in 1:46:43 to win in Cagliari two years on the bounce.
Lombardi followed through for second, Spivey for third and Beaugrand for fourth after making up a huge amount of time.
Lehair and Potter followed in fifth and sixth, respectively. Zaferes, having put in a decent shift on the bike at the front of the chase group, crossed the line in 12th.
Talking after the race Taylor-Brown said: "I definitely did [doubt my own ability] after Yokohama. It sounds pathetic saying that but I'm so used to being in that front pack.
"I really missed it. It was a bit of a shock for me to miss those front packs [in Yokohama and Abu Dhabi], so I've just tried to keep my head focused and not worry about it too much; just trust the process and it'll come in time. I'm finally back!"
WTCS Cagliari women's results
- Georgia Taylor-Brown; 1:46:43
- Emma Lombardi; 1:47:06
- Taylor Spivey; 1:47:36
- Cassandre Beaugrand; 1:47:44
- Jeannie Lehair; 1:48:00
- Beth Potter; 1:48:04
- Summer Rappaport; 1:48:12
- Lisa Tertsch; 1:48:51
- Nina Eim; 1:48:55
- Rosa Maria Tapia Vidal; 1:48:57
Top image credit: Janos M Schmidt/World Triathlon
