Great Britain Take First Ever Olympic Triathlon Mixed Relay Gold
The Olympic Triathlon Mixed Relay was set to make some noise on Friday 30 July at Odaiba Marine Park as seventeen countries took to the start line ready to do battle which saw Great Britain take home the gold and make history.
First Leg
The women were the first to set off into the water on the first leg of four beginning with a 300m swim. A short 140 meters to the first bouy saw the women tussle for position but it was Great Britains Jessica Learmonth who would take to the front with the Netherlands Maya Kigma on her hip who would be out to redeem herself after what some would consider a individual performance which was slightly under par.
The lead women were out of the water little after three minutes and the filed was already strung out. Three time World Champions and pre-race favourites France were surprisingly near the back and had some chasing to do if they wanted to be within contention of a medal.
Onto the bike and Learmonth was out of T2 and away. However, her gap was brought back swiftly with USA’s Katie Zaferes, Netherlands Kingma and Germany’s Laura lindemann joining her. Australia’s Emma Jeffcoat was ‘sitting in no man’s land’ and would soon be caught by the chase pack.
By the end of the bike section the four leaders had held strong and worked well together and had a 26 second gap over France’s Leonie Periault. Through T2 Learmonth flew out with Zaferes with Kigma and lindemann dropping a few seconds.
Making the handover first was Zaferes for the USA but all countries that were there on the bike closely followed with their handovers.
Second Leg
Germany’s Schomberg put in a storming first 50 meters to be the first athlete to dive into the water to start the second leg closely followed by USA’s Kevin Mcdowel and Great Britains Jonathan Brownlee and the Netherlands Marco van der Stel.
All four countries came out of the water together and maintained good position on the bike working together as a pack to keep the French away.
Into T2 the French had worked well with the Belgiums to close the gap ever so slightly by 10 seconds and came in 26 seconds down.
Brownlee was a man on a mission out on the run sailing away from the rest of the athletes with just McDowell keeping him in sight throughout. Brownlee then handed over to Georgia Taylor-Brown with McDowell handing over to Knibb.
The French were still some way behind by this point but it was Cassandre Beaugrand who is renowned for pulling off good performances over the shorter distance.
Third Leg
Gerogia Taylor-Brown went into the swim with a commanding lead and extended this further by the end exiting the water 22 seconds ahead of Knibb. Beaugrand had a storming swim giving them hope for a medal, it would just be a question of which colour.
On the bike all Taylor-Brown could do was put her head down. Knibb, a known strong biker, also put her head down breaking clear of Beaugrand to give herself as best a chance as possible on the run section.
By the end of the bike section Knibb had managed to close the gap to Taylor-Brown down to just 11 seconds. A chase pack which now included Germany, Belgium and of course France’s Beaugrand were 35 seconds from the leader.
Taylor-Brown used her run prowess to smoothly push on and extend the lead back out again from Knibb handing over to the men’s individual silver medalist Alex Yee with a 20 second advantage over Knibb who was handing over to Morgan Pearson.
Beaugrand would hand over to Vincent Luis with a gap of 33 seconds to make up.
Fourth Leg
A slower swimmer, it was always going to be a case for Yee of how much of this lead could he maintain. He held his own although Pearson and Luis had made up ground exciting the siwm together 17 seconds down still. It was looking like these would be the top three for the podium but could Yee stay away?
Pearson and Luis looked as though they could work well together to catch Yee but Luis went solo, breaking away from Pearson on lap one and catching Yee. He would try the same with Yee but with no luck.
Things settled down at this point and Pearson held his gap of 4 seconds all the way through to the end of the bike section and into T2 with Yee and Luis coming in together just up front.
Yee was on a mission and had a perfect T2 and left with a gap of 3 seconds over Luis and Pearson 6 seconds.
There was no comback for the two athlete over Yee, even with Pearson passing Luis halfway through lap 1.
Down the finish straight Yee could look at his teammates with pride knowing they had made history as he took the tape before collapsing into their arms. Pearson would bring home Silver for the USA and a brave Luis would hold on for third for France.
Top three finishers:
1. Great Britain 1:23:41
2. United States 1:23:55
3. France 1:24:04
Full results are available HERE
