BROWNLEE DELIVERS A TRIATHLON MASTERCLASS

By

April 21, 2013

Olympic gold medallist, Alistair Brownlee demolished the field in round two of the ITU World Triathlon Series in San Diego reminding everyone why he is the world’s best triathlete.


 
Second out of the water, pushing the pace on the ride and producing a 29:30 run split, (which included walking the last 50 metres) were the ingredients for Brownlee’s master class of brilliance.
 
The fact that Brownlee delivered his stunning performance on the back of only six weeks of training must send shivers down the spine of his competitors left to battle for the minor podium spots.
 
Jesus Gomar’s (ESP) spectacular dismount where he catapulted his bike over the dismount line and face planted into the blue carpet, highlighted the intensity of the men’s event at the ITU World Championship Series and signalled the effective start of the race for podium places.
 
With 32 athletes (including the heavy hitters Alistair Brownlee, Javier Gomez, and Mario Mola) within 30 seconds of each other after 1h:17m of racing, it was time for an exhibition.
 
Brownlee “eased” into the run with three minute km pace straight off the bike, putting eight seconds into Richard Murray and Joao Silva, 19 seconds to Adam Bowden (GBR), Steffen Justus (GBR) and Gomez , Mola (ESP) and Dmitry Polyansky (RUS) in the first lap.
 
By lap two, and with more pavement to play with, Brownlee had a 22 second lead over Murray, Silva 32 secs, Polyanskiy, Justus, Mola and Gomez a minute down.
 
With each step Brownlee’s lead just kept increasing and averaging 20kmh he gave the people of San Diego an exhibition in not only triathlon, but 10km road racing.
 
Only second placed Richard Murray (RSA) and third placed Joao Silva (POR) were in the same postcode as the winner, so it is now back to the drawing board for the world’s best athletes to see if they can find a strategy to reel Brownlee in.
 
“I enjoyed that but I think that run is short, to be honest, there is no way that I have run a 29:30,” Brownlee said.
 
“I am sure you will think I am lying when I tell you I have only done six weeks training. I did Abu Dhabi six weeks ago and I hadn’t done any fast running up until then and I have just pushed on since then. I think it is good to have a winter without injury.”
 
Brownlee had time to give a small tactical lesson to the vanquished his post race interview.
 
“I didn’t know how fast I was going to run to be honest and it is literally only this last week that I have felt half decent. It was a bit of an unknown, so I tried to push the bike. I don’t understand there were eight guys in that group on the bike and not one of them has finished in the top ten. I don’t know why they don’t push the bike, it makes no sense to me. I tried to get away and form a small group of four to see if we could work a bit better but that didn’t work.”
 
“I don’t think some of these guys are tactically that proficient a lot of time,” he declared.
 
Aussie Aaron Royle had a great swim and was riding the big boys until lap six of the bike when he lost more than a minute, found himself in no man’s land and effectively ended his day finishing 35th.

1.         ALISTAIR BROWNLEE  GBR     01:47:16
2.         RICHARD MURRAY     RSA      +00:22
3.         JOAO SILVA                 POR     +00:36
4.         STEFFEN JUSTUS          GER     +00:58
5.         MARIO MOLA             ESP      +01:02
6.         ADAM BOWDEN         GBR     +01:06
7.         DMITRY POLYANSKIY  RUS      +01:12
8.         JAVIER GOMEZ           ESP      +01:22
9.         SVEN RIEDERER          SUI       +01:31
10.       DAVID MCNAMEE       GBR     +01:38