A German Sweep to Start the Season at WTCS Abu Dhabi
It should hardly come as a surprise to see them dominate the podium, but the feat remains relatively unprecedented. Sure, Australia had the three Emmas (Moffat, Jackson and Snowsill) top the podium in Hamburg in 2011. On the men’s side the Norwegians managed the feat in Bermuda in 2018, while the French team did it again in Montreal in 2021. Today, though, Germany added its name to the exclusive list to World Triathlon Championship Series (WTCS) sweeps. Should we be surprised? Hardly – over the last few years Germany has been producing some of the top women’s draft-legal triathletes. That depth helped them take gold in the Mixed Relay in Paris last year, and for the season opener in Abu Dhabi the Germans had eight athletes lined up for the start, a fifth of the field of 40.
For the swim it was pretty much a given that Italy’s Bianca Seregni was going to be first out of the water, and she did just that, hitting the beach in 8:56 with Belgium’s Jolien Vermeylen close behind. American Taylor Spivey led the chase group out of the water 18 seconds behind the Italian, with with race-favourite Lisa Tertsch from Germany and her countrywoman Laura Lindemann, along with other podium favourites including and Luxembourg’s Jeanne Lehair not far behind. Spivey’s countrywoman Gwen Jorgensen appeared to be on track for a decent day after the swim, hitting T2 29 seconds behind the lead.
It wasn’t long before a good portion of the rest of the field had caught up to Seregni and Vermeylen – by the end of the first lap all but five athletes were together, which created a huge lead group. Jorgensen, though, got dropped just before the end of the first lap and lost a bit more time negotiating around a crash, which put her in a difficult spot as things started to heat up during the second lap. At the end of the second lap the gap to Jorgensen was 15 seconds as the German contingent of Lindemann, Anabel Knoll, Tertsch and Annika Koch kept the pace moving up at the front. The stiff headwind for the first part of the loop saw the group bunch up, then as the athletes enjoyed the huge tailwind things would spread out a bit more as inevitably someone tried to open up a bit of a gap.
Towards the end of the third lap Great Britain’s Kate Waugh did just that and managed to put some pressure on the group, but France’s Leonie Periault marked the move as Spivey joined her at the front. By the time the women got to the final lap there were 29 women in the lead group, with Jorgensen riding alone a minute down.
Waugh led the way into T2, but it was Tertsch who had the fastest transition to lead the women onto the two-lap run course. A group of 10 quickly formed, and for a while it looked as though we were watching a German training day as Tertsch, Lindemann, Eim, Tanja Neubert and Koch were all at the front. Koch would be the first to drop back, though, as the group whittled down to nine.
At the end of the first of two laps on the run it was Periault pushing at the front with Eim, Tertsch and Lindemann right on her heels. Neubert found herself desperately trying to hang on a few seconds down, but it quickly became apparent that there was going to be a group of four going for the medals. Periault kept pushing the pace as the group dropped the rest of the field, leaving Lehair to lead the chasers 11 seconds down.
As they neared the finish it was Tertsch who made the first move, but Lindemann quickly marked it, and suddenly it was Periault who was hanging on trying to stay in contention for a medal. The three Germans kept pushing and dropped the Frenchwoman.
Tertsch managed to get to the front with a few hundred meters to go and stayed ahead through the line, which she hit in an impressive 54:29 as Eim (54:30) hung on for second with Lindemann (54:31) ensuring there was a German sweep of the podium. Periault maintained her fourth as Mexico’s Rosa Maria Tapia Vidal outsprinted Neubert for fifth, leaving Lehair to take seventh. Swim leader Seregni finished eighth, Diana Isakova took ninth while Waugh would round out the top 10.
“I am happy with my execution, but I also prepared really well,” Tertsch said after the race. “It was a cat and mouse over the last lap, but that’s racing, and I was able to play my cards right.”
Tertsch sure did, adding another WTCS title to her resume after her big win in Weihei last year.
Spivey would lead the American contingent, finishing 13th, one spot ahead of Erika Ackerlund. Jorgensen would end up 19th.
You can see the full results here.
So I now have to avoid this forum with its SPOILER thread titles after every big race!
Seriously stop posting spoilers in the titles!
Very early morning for you @ironmandad!
Good race report, but I’m really annoyed with myself for forgetting I was visiting Spoiltwitch…
Speaking of spoilers first thing I see on Instagram when I open it is the finish of the womens race on a reel thanks to World Triathlon, stay away from all social media if you plan on not watching the race live is your best bet.
Well done Abu Dhabi for having three tricolours.
You’d think people who can’t or don’t watch races live would have discovered how to avoid spoilers by now.
Theres no excuse for putting race spoilers in thread titles, this is pretty much an unwritten rule of sports forums.
Im not even sure why they need race review threads in the forum both male and female, we’ve already got a thread for this race, so theres now three threads for one race!
This has been discussed over and over again - there’s no other system for people to be able to comment on articles. They’re just automatically converted to forum threads.
As to spoilers, same thing. Been discussed, management didn’t budge on avoiding spoilers in the subject line of the e-mail newsletter you get (I no longer get), so no chance they’ll curate article titles more carefully.
Didn’t the American women sweep in Canada a few years ago?
I don’t understand why we need to see all “news” articles in the forum at all.
There was already nice, informative and comprehensive thread about WTCS Abu Dhabi. It was active.
Then there was a “news” article, basically a copy of what was already in the first post of the first thread. Unnecessary dilution of people’s activity.
Now this spoiler…
Jorgensen was 29th… not 19th…
Can’t the news article be added into the race thread if they’re trying to get people to read the wrap ups?
For me the spoiler hate is quite surprising - I actually enjoy knowing the outcome and then watching the event with an eye as to HOW the event produced the outcome - I am more attentive to ALL the action and enjoy questioning how a moment may have been consequential to the outcome…otherwise its just background noise to the finishline and the high likelihood I’m re-watching something anyway.
Now if its the lottery, I totally agree - I’d rather compare my numbers to the outcome before I read the Wall Street Journal about my good fortune.
I agree.
It’s complaining to complain.
I just checked some major media like the BBC, New York times etc and they all have headlines about soccer, hockey, football etc with the result in the title.
In fact there is barely a non spoiler headline.
If you don’t want to know the result, don’t look.
It’s your problem. People are so precious. The works revolves around their needs.
Yes, it was! The dog was even happy to stay inside until after the women’s race!