Timtek wrote:
Historically Murray and Mola have been able to run themselves on to the podium
I just had a look at Murray's last 10 World Series results (including Rio and the test event) to analyse that. He's definitely a great runner and does put a significant amount of time into much of the field if he starts from behind on the run. But how true is it really that he can run himself on to the podium from behind?
From his last 10 results, he's podiumed 5 times.
3rd at Edmonton 2016
2nd at Abu Dhabi 2016
3rd at Chicago 2015
1st at Edmonton 2015
3rd at Rio Test Event 2015
We can immediately discount the 2015 Edmonton win as everybody came off the bike at the same time.
In the 2016 Edmonton 3rd place, it was Brownlee, Varga and Royle who came off the bike 7 seconds in front.
In the 2016 Abu Dhabi 2nd, it was just Fabian who came off the bike 12 seconds in front.
In the 2015 Chicago 3rd, it was Kanute, Salvisberg, Van der Stel and Colucci who came off 37 seconds in front.
For me the only result in his last 10 races where he's podiumed whilst running from both a significant time gap behind and against several regular top 10 runners is his 2015 3rd at the Rio test event where he made up over a minute to get third.
Then if you look at his 5th today, 4th in Cozumel, 4th in Rio I think it becomes clear that it's actually very difficult to run yourself on the podium from behind.
In fact skimming through the rest of his results to 2012 I cannot find one other instance of where he's podiumed whilst coming back from a significant time gap on the World Series (might have missed one...)