Kristian Blummenfelt Storms to Olympic Triathlon Gold
The greatest show of all took place on Monday 26 July at the stunning location of Odaiba Marine Park as Kristian Blummenfelt of Norway stormed his way to take the Men’s Olympic gold.
There was a dramatic start to the race as a false start caused alarm as multiple athletes swam 100m unaware of the issue before being stopped. The athletes were given a moment to gain their composure and things eventually got going for a second time.
Once back underway it was Rio bronze medalist Henri Schoeman of South Africa who paced his way to the front of the swim all the way to the first bouy closely followed by most of the favourites Jonathan Brownlee, Vincent Luis and Morgan Pearson.
However, young 22 year old Diego Moya would soon overtake Schoeman and hold the lead for the majority of the first lap. By the dive in for the second lap Luis would be showing his prowess to take control of the swim and lead the athletes out of the water at the end of the swim section.
All the athletes moved swiftly through T1 and it was going to be a case of could a breakaway be formed.
Onto the bike a small group formed at the start which included Belgium’s Marten Van Riel, Brownlee and Germany’s Jonas Schomburg.
A big second group formed behind but the front group were working well together initially in an attempt to stay away. Van Riel was regularly pushing the pace at the front and the tight turns looked like they were helping the group stay out of sight. By the end of lap one they had an 18 second lead over the second group and a further 15 seconds over group three which included all three Spanish athletes.
Things remained the same for lap two but by lap three the group had whittled the gap down to 10 seconds and heading into lap four had caught the lead pack.
The group stayed together for two laps until Switzerland’s Andrea Salvisberg took off. The Swiss created a good 15 second advantage over the large pack behind and for the remaining 2.5 laps kept his lead as it grew to 20 seconds by the end.
Salvisburg headed out onto the run after a smooth T2 but the rest of the field had been saving their legs for the remainder of the bike to put in a fast run off the bike.
In the chase Alex Yee powered his way into the lead taking multiple athletes with him including Kristian Blummenfelt, Frenchman Dorian Connix and Kiwi Hayden Wilde.
At the end of lap one Dorian Connix to the front on lap two but Yee soon took back the lead and at this point Connix faded.
At the end of lap three it boiled down to a three man break away between Wilde Blummenfelt and Yee with all athletes continuously switching positions and looking at each other. With just 1.5km remaining Blummenfelt made a break for it as Wilde and Yee both dropped.
The grit and determination stayed with Blummenfelt to the end as he took the tape in Tokyo with Alex Yee following in second and Wilde coming home in third.
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