Kristian Blummenfelt Crowned World Triathlon Champion as he Sprints to Victory in Edmonton
Kristian Blummenfelt emulates Flora Duffy in the women’s race as being the only male to be Crowned the first-ever Olympic and World Triathlon Champion after he sprints to victory in the World Triathlon Grand Final in Edmonton.
As the water temperature in Haerealk Park Pond rose to 20°C 20c in Edmonton the men lined up for the non-wetsuit swim. It was 2 x World Champion Vicent Luis who was the man on a mission exiting the water 1st closely followed by Hungarian Márk Dévay and Belgian Marten Van Riel some distance ahead of Olympic Medalist Blummenfelt, Yee, and Wilde
It was this leading trio that formed the front pack with a large chasing pack headlined by Olympic Gold Medalist Blummenfelt attempting to close the gap while a third group with Olympic Silver and Bronze medalist Alex Yee and Hayden Wilde trying to close a deficit of 65 seconds to the leading trio.
Half-way through the 40km bike leg the leading trio of Luis, Dévay and Van Riel were ahead of the Blummenfelt chasing pack by 31 seconds whilst the third pack with Bronze Olympic Medalist Hayden Wilde and Yee were 45 seconds down on the second pack.
In the last kilometre the chasing pack had closed the deficit on the leading trio to just 10 seconds and allowed the athletes to bunch together exiting T1 onto the 10k run. A front group quickly formed of 9 athletes consisting of Hojo of Japan, Swiss Briffod, American Rider, Kiwi Reid, Spaniard Serrat, Van Riel, Blummenfelt and the two Frenchmen Luis and Bergere.
Some further 90 seconds behind at the 5k mark was Alex Yee who started to find an extra gear and was seriously putting down a marker to begin picking off the athletes ahead reducing the deficit to the front runner by 45 seconds put him in eleventh place but was running out of road.
With one kilometre to go Blummenflet makes his move and puts the hammer down with only Van Riel and Bergere going with him to make it a three man show. An what a show as the three of them hit the blue carpet it was a sprint to the finish with Blummenfelt taking the win in 01:44:14 with Van Reil coming in second and Bergere taking third spot.
