Triathlon: Flora Duffy Finishes 5th In Lausanne
Bermudian triathlete Flora Duffy finished 5th in the ITU World Triathlon Grand Final Lausanne this weekend.
Triathlon.org reported that “Katie Zaferes became ITU World Champion on Saturday evening in the Olympic Capital Lausanne, sealing the greatest season of her career with a fifth WTS gold of the year.
“Second for Learmonth ensured she finished with the overall Series silver, third for Taylor Brown maintaining her place on the all important end-of-campaign podium for the second year.
“It was Learmonth who was once again in command in the water, pulling away from the very first strokes to spearhead an initial lead group of seven that included the ever-excellent Vittoria Lopes [BRA], Taylor Spivey [USA], Summer Rappaport [USA] and Sophie Coldwell [GBR].
“Zaferes was 10 seconds back at the halfway re-entry, Flora Duffy 18 and Nicola Spirig [SUI] 30 seconds, and the gap to the front had almost doubled by the time the American was back out of the water and heading into transition for the first time, but in good company to work with to close in.
“Duffy was up with Zaferes, Learmonth, Coldwell, Spivey and Lopes in no time, and the six worked themselves into a rhythm led by the Bermudian double-World Champion.
“Another powerful cyclist was working her magic further back, home-crowd hero Spirig hauling a group that included the likes of Taylor Knibb [USA] and Vicky Holland [GBR] along with her. After 12km the gap was nearly 30 seconds and closing, and collectively they could have caused issues for Zaferes if they had bridged successfully.
“Duffy had other ideas, though, and her power saw Taylor Spivey and Sophie Coldwell dropped, leaving five flying out front.
“Again she took up the attack at the top of the hill on lap six and threatened to pull away. Though the door was shut again on Duffy’s latest hopes of success, the effort did mean that Spirig’s group was left trailing yet further behind, the deficit now in excess of a minute and looking increasingly unreachable.
“That left Zaferes with 5km to go and the World title as good as guaranteed, the matter of the course of the Grand Final still to be decided by the overall Series podium.”
The full 2019 ITU World Triathlon Grand Final results follow below [PDF here]:
