It’s a crazy time in the world of professional triathlon these days. The long-term mainstays for both long-course (Ironman) and short-course (World Triathlon) now have some company in terms of attracting pro talent in the form of the Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO) and supertri. The latter two organizations are both dependent on support from billionaires as they push a broadcast-based racing format. They need that support because, as far as most of us involved in the sport can tell, both organizations are losing a lot of money.
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It’s certainly not because the racing isn’t exciting. We’ll save the PTO’s T100 World Triathlon Series for another time and focus on today’s supertri final in NEOM, Saudi Arabia. It is hard to imagine how the racing could have been any more exciting. The day included: five of the six Paris medalists competing, a rematch of the sport’s most exciting rivalry (Alex Yee and Hayden Wilde), leaders crashing in corners as they looked to be pulling away from the rest of the competition, duels right down to the finish line for the overall titles, along with close battles for the overall team title, too. It’s hard to imagine how supertri could have put together more excitement into one race.
Beaugrand runs to the win, Taylor-Brown nets the title
Cassandre Beaugrand, the Olympic gold medalist and world champion, hadn’t enjoyed the best of supertri seasons, struggling to stay on her game after all the emotions of her big win in Paris. She got things back on track to take the World Triathlon Grand Final, nailing her first world championship a few weeks ago in Torremolinos, Spain. That continued today with an impressive win that saw the Frenchwoman blast clear on the final run to easily take the win.
After American Taylor Spivey crashed while in the lead during the second bike leg (the race consists of three consecutive super-sprint races), Luxembourg’s Jeanne Lehair and Beaugrand were able to ride clear of the rest of the field, making it a two-woman race for the win. That left series leader Georgia Taylor-Brown needing to finish within two spots of Lehair, the winner of the first race of the supertri season in Boston. As Beaugrand ran clear of Lehair to take the win, Taylor-Brown found herself having to dig deep to nail the overall supertri title.
“I really did it the hard way today,” Taylor-Brown said after the race. “I thought I needed third, but [Brownlee Racing team manager] Non Stanford told me that I needed fourth so I was hanging on for that fourth spot at the end. When Leonie [Périault] went past me into third I didn’t have anything more to give. I was at the back for much of the race today and it wasn’t my best day. But I get the title and that’s all I came for today.”
The fourth-place finish behind Periault was enough to net Taylor-Brown the overall title ahead of Periault, with Beaugrand rounding out the top-three in the series standings.
Yee sprints to another win, Wilde nails the series
We’ve seen a number of exciting races between Great Britain’s Alex Yee and New Zealand’s Hayden Wilde this year, including the show-stopping come-from-behind win for Yee at the Olympics in Paris. The two did it again in Boston, where Yee managed to take the sprint for the win, and then Wilde managed a huge win at the Grand Final, where Yee finished third. (That was enough to net Yee the world title, though.)
Wilde was very much in the driver’s seat to take the supertri title thanks to a win in Chicago and London to go along with his runner-up finish in Boston, with France’s Leo Bergere, the bronze medalist from Paris, also in the mix for a top overall finish in the series.
And it was those three that managed to break clear into the final leg of the race in NEOM, setting up a thrilling three-way sprint over the final 400 m for the win. Bergere would surge past Wilde with about 300 m left, but then it was Yee who surged to the front to take the win just ahead of Wilde, with Bergere rounding out the podium.
Wilde needed a podium finish to guarantee the supertri series win, and his finish also ensured that Wilde’s Crown Racing squad (Taylor-Brown is also part of that team) would take the team title as well.
The Crown Racing team will get to divvy up $375,000 to the members – a nice bonus for the series, too. There’s no doubt that supertri racing is amongst the most exciting in the multisport world. It’s certainly exciting enough to captivate triathlon fans, especially with races like the one we saw in NEOM this weekend. The question is, is it enough to attract other sports fans to come and watch?
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