London Calling: Franco-German Victory at Arena Triathlon Games
London saw France’s Cassandre Beaugrand and Germany’s Justus Nieschlag dominant performances take victory in their respective races at the 2022 London Arena Games World Championships.
The Olympic Aquatics Centre, London set the stage for the Super League Triathlon Arena Games powered by Zwift. The real-life and virtual reality blended racing provided an immersive viewing experience for the sell-out crowd.
A home-crowd of near 2,000 had plenty to cheer about as three of Britian’s gold medal winning Olympic stars headlined the series second event in the shape of Alex Yee, Georgia Taylor-Brown and Jess Learmonth in addition to winner of women’s Munich indoor event, Scottish triathlete Beth Potter.
Nevertheless, there was plenty for an international array of athletes to play for as the event contributed points to the World Triathlon Rankings, as well as collecting points towards the overall three-race series in a bid to be crowned the first-ever eSports Triathlon World Champion 2022.
Saturday’s event consisted of multiple races with heats and a final to decide the points and the sizeable prize-pot of $42,200 distributed pro-rata amongst the finalists.
Heats saw two stages of swim-bike-run, while, come the final, the best 10 pros on the day raced Super League’s unique Arena Games Triathlon format. That means 3 short, sharp and unpredictable stages that all feature swim, bike and run and offer no respite to the athletes, with the added challenge that the order of the disciplines is shuffled each time. A pursuit style start is also adopted for the final stage each time they race.
For this event the Zwift drafting option was disabled for the first time, in effect making the bike segment a time trial. There would be no coasting on the back of the pack for athletes on this occasion, success would all be down to bike wattage.
Womens Race
The first heat was to lay the foundations. Beaugrand outswam GB’s Jess Learmonth but Learmonth hit back powering down on the bike to reach T1 first. Onto the 1km run and as in Munich it was Potter power of 18km/h pace that saw the Scot take the lead only to be outrun in the final 300m by Beaugrand who was on 19km/h pace.
Onto Heat two with the format reversed and commencing with the run Beaugrand laid down a marker of 21km/h pace that GB’s Bet Potter or any other of the field of Olympic Games gold medallists and Super League Triathlon powerhouses had an answer for. After completing the bike and swim section the Frenchwomen was ahead by 14 seconds over second place Potter.
Onto the final pursuit heat and Beaugrand had an overall lead of 17 seconds over Potter, 19secs over Learmonth and 22secs ahead of Taylor-Brown before the final 200m swim, 4km bike and 1km run.
Any thought the chasing athletes had of reeling the Frenchwomen in went out the window when she extended her lead coming out of the swim and further pulling away on the bike and run section to an effortless victory with a winning margin of 32 seconds over Beth Potter. Learmonth took third behind Potter, while Taylor-Brown was fourth over a minute back
It was an amazing feat by the Frenchwomen and will have the triathlon community chatting about how she was able to run 2.45min kilometre pace, the fastest in the Arena Games up to that moment in time and that includes the men. There will no doubt be questions discussed as whether treadmill technique plays a bigger factor in fast times than just natural running ability.
Men’s Race
The first heat gave the home-crowd plenty to cheer about as the local lad and British Olympic hero Gold Alex Yee took Stage 1 of the three-stage race. It was the Italian Nicolò Strada who was first out the water and powered down on the bike section leaving the rest in his wake entering T2 with a 7 second lead over Alex Yee. But once onto the run Alex Yee came into his own and took the first stage win with a lead of 3 seconds over the German Nieschlag.
Onto heat two and with half of the field already over 20secs in arrears Yee looked to be control. But the German Nieschlag was not giving up and came to fore in the reversed format running to the front and coming in with a 2 second lead over Yee. Hitting 50km/h+ speeds on the bike section, Nieschlag entered T2 with a 12sec cushion over Yee and at the end of the swim it was clear that it was a head-to-head between Yee and Nieschlag with the German having the clear time advantage of 17 seconds.
Onto the final pursuit heat and the swim saw Nieschlag extend his time advantage and continue his flawless performance over the bike and run section to take victory – making this win his fourth Arena Games medal – some 30 seconds ahead of Yee who by this time had settled for second place with the Italian Nicolò Strada gutsy performance earning him third place.
Disaster struck in London for Munich champion Frenchman Aurelien Rapheal as another Treadmill error appeared in the heats like the one that hampered GB’s Gordon Benson in the Munich race. The Frenchman threw his arm into air on the treadmill (your DQ is you touch the Pad-screen) to alert officials of a technical problem and you knew his race was over from that point, whatever the rule allowances are.
