Cassandre Beaugrand thrills Paris with a huge Olympic win

After a few tense days  where we weren’t sure we’d see a triathlon, Paris came alive today with an incredible women’s triathlon – yes, they swam in the Seine. The Paris crowds got their dream finish, as the home country favourite, Cassandre Beaugrand, took a thrilling gold.

Surviving the swim

Unless you’ve been off the grid for the last few weeks, you’ll be fully aware that just getting into the water this morning has been a challenge for both the athletes and the Paris 2024 organizers. Things only got more interesting once we saw the athletes in the water dealing with the strong current in the Seine. Reportedly running at 1 m/ second, the effort back up against the current turned out to be a huge challenge.

The woman who mastered that challenge better than all the rest was defencing gold medalist Flora Duffy. The Bermudan star was out first after 910 m, and maintained her lead through the rest of the swim, running up the pontoon and towards the stairs to the transition on the bridge in 22:05. She’s followed by Italy’s Bianca Seregni, Brazil’s Vitoria Lopes, Maya Kingma (NED), Beth Potter (GBR) and Cassandre Beaugrand (FRA). The big shock in the swim is Taylor Knibb’s challenges – she would hit T2 two minutes behind the leaders.

The lead group forms

Duffy would give it a shot at taking off on her own through the first two laps of the bike, but even she cycling skills weren’t enough to hold off the inspired group that was chasing that included: Zsanett Kuttor-Bragmayer (HUN), Seregni, Beaugrand, Emma Lombardi (FRA), Potter, Lisa Tertsch (GER), Georgia Taylor-Brown, Lopes, Kingma, American Kirsten Kasper and Laura Lindemann (GER). The group caught Duffy before the end of the second lap.

The slick course was wreaking havoc on the race as a number of women went down. Kasper would be involved in a crash with Lopes, and by the end of the third loop the group was down to 10 including: Potter, Beaugrand, Duffy, Kingma, Taylor-Brown, Julie Derron (SUI), Lindemann, Lombardi, Spivey and Kuttor-Bragmayer.

By this point Knibb and Great Britain’s Kate Waugh were leading the chase pack, driving the group and gaining some time. After being caught by the Knibb/ Waugh train, Kasper would go down again, losing a chunk of time trying to fix her bike.

Up front Duffy and Kingma kept trying to figure out how to get away, but they couldn’t make anything stick and had to settle with being part of an organized echelon that efficiently kept clear of the chase group. Lindemann must have gone down because heading into the last lap she was 38 seconds off the group, with the Waugh and Knibb chase group 1:14 down.

Then there were four

The nine leaders came off the bike just over a minute ahead of the chase group, and it quickly became clear that the medals would be decided from the lead group. Spivey was the first to get dropped, but it wasn’t long before Kingma was out of the picture. Next to fall back was Taylor-Brown, and then it was Duffy who would be dropped from the medal picture.

Of the remaining four, Beaugrand seemed to push early, but eventually she seemed to realize it would be better to sit back for a while. The group let Derron lead the way through the bell.

Shortly after that, though, Beaugrand made her charge. To the cheers of the Paris crowds, the Frenchwoman’s fluid, relaxed stride belied the incredible effort that pulled her clear of the rest of the group. Surprisingly it was Derron who managed to stay closer to the front as Potter struggled to keep up with the Swiss athlete, while Lombardi fell behind the Brit.

Beaugrand would surge cross the line, exhausted, but the Olympic champion in her home country in a time of 1:54:55. Derron would take the silver (1:55:01), with Potter rounding out the podium (1:55:10). Lombardi would give France another thrill with fourth (1:55:16), with Duffy taking fifth (1:56:12). Spivey would lead the American contingent in 11th with Knibb taking 19th. Despite the two crashes, Kasper would get to the line (49th). Canada’s Emy Legault finished 35th.

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