Hard to look past Duffy. Not sure how much training GTB has done this past month. She was in top form the other weekend in a XC race for her club.

I think there will be a breakaway of about 5. Learmonth, LCB, Duffy, possibly Rapperpor and possibly GTB. How much they can work together and stay away is hard to tell so late in the season.

Some NGBs will have their athletes focusing on this race and some won’t. Spivey and Kramer are my outsider choices.

It is only a sprint distance so Potter might be able to run through to top 5 if the lead group get caught.

EDIT: just realised Knibb is racing. Bit of a game changer with break away group.

Men hard to look past Luis as Yee isn’t racing.

I'd be surprised if LCB isn't top 10, I don't think she'll threaten the podium with it being a sprint distance, and a less challenging course (terrain wise, and relatively challenging technically).

Generally those are some good picks, I wouldn't count out Geens and Mislawchuk (who has a pretty stellar record on hot AF conditions) either, and Vilaca and Bergere are also podium threats.

Beth Potter is on fire lately, dominating the two Korean world cups, and yes these fields are deeper, but she's got some momentum. That said, the LCB effect on the swim, may make her path to the podium much harder, it's also why I am less convinced that Laura Lindemann can crack the podium. I would swap in Learmonth as a podium threat, because she can be there with LCB on the swim, and coldwell and rappaport as dark horses, the bike might be too technical for summer, but she could be there or thereabouts after the swim and if she doesn't get dropped on the bike will be a threat...

I agree, as long as LCB stays upright, I don't see her out of the top 10. Her only weakness is transition, tactics, and bike handling. Hard to be out of the top 10 if you're top 10 in each discipline.
At least two people crashed on the F1 track in the last day.
I suspect we'll see a few crashes that change how the race plays out.

Women's race is VERY deep. We will see multiple podium threats out of the top 10/15.
I really doubt anyone who is a weaker cyclist will have a good race. Too hot and fast for that.

Should be fun!

Heck yes it is. If she's anywhere near the front of the swim I expect her to literally blow past those in front of her with complete wreckless abandon. Only those able to latch on to her wheel and go with her will have a chance at the podium.

YMMV,

Hugh

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

Good come back win from Jelle! Vincent also getting back to near top run fitness is good to see.

She almost dropped everyone a twice!
But not quite. Held on for 5th. Impressive on a HOT day.

Those front 5 are so impressive. I've never seen anything like it.

Yes well done today. Taylor did an impressive catch up after a bit of a swim deficit and then did the lion's share of the drilling it on the bike to build the group a very nice lead into the run. The other front gals certainly took full advantage of her hard work. She really adds to the dynamic of the women's race. Weaker bikers will definitely moan when they see her on a start list.

Hugh

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

12th for LCB, which doesn't sound horrible, but she was the 7th Brit!! That team is crazy stacked. She'll need to improve both her bike and run to have a shot at Paris in 2024. Transition times are on par with others, which is a good thing.

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Her run was decent but her bike handling was horrible. She clearly has the power to make the front group but not the skills at the moment. She rode 4 of the 5 bike laps solo which shows that she can ride hard. But she lost 10 meters every corner in the first lap on the front group which you can't keep making up. I'm impressed by how she managed to hang on the run. Let's hope she does some cross races or crits the next few months.

I agree that her skills could use some improvement.
Watching the race, it looked like she was lacking a top end to hold/close a gap as well.
GTB almost fell off the back a few times. And that was all from lack of speed/power. I imagine GTB and LCB are about the same strength on the bike at the moment, but GTB has a slightly higher top end.
Obviously LCB can TT with the best of them, so I'm not surprised she held off the chase group on the bike.

I'm wondering if going hard out of the swim is a foreign concept for her. She's not used to being in a swarm of women as fast/faster than her.

I kept double checking during the women's race that I wasn't watching the GB National champs being crashed by Flora and Knibb... 12th is a solid result for LCB, Despite being a race track, Abu Dhabi has always been one of the tougher technical courses, which will exposed weaknesses in that area, which we know is her weakness... Flora's injury cycle that almost derailed her Olympic aspirations started with a crash on that track, Jo Brown (also a strong bike handler) has sustained broken bones on that course twice, Katie Z has wrecked there among many others... Lucy's TT class actually worked against her in this case, she couldn't close down to the front, but was strong enough to hold off the chase, but in the meantime expended a lot of energy that she wouldn't have had she let the chase catch, which likely hurt her on the run. I love watching courageous racing, and she crushed that, but it likely cost her a few spots due to the lack of run legs.

Knibb is a beast on the bike, and she showed that class, but there was a solid lead group and she couldn't quite shed them, which meant that her bridging efforts likely took some pop out of her run legs... The women's racing is exciting right now, because you can't really have a weak discipline to have much of a chance these days. Because that front pack are solid across the 3 legs, as long as they work together off the swim, there's not really much of a chance to get back in and challenge the podium. I suspect between here and Yokohama in May, a lot of ladies are going to be hitting the swim and bike hard to try and reduce their deficits to the floras/lcb/learmonths, etc. of the world in hopes to catch the Knibb train...

Lucy's TT class actually worked against her in this case, she couldn't close down to the front, //

How is she supposed to close down to a group that she couldn't even draft off of? Lucy's gift and albatross is that she will always be at the front of the race, have every chance in the world to just stay there, and can only go backwards in most cases. Her next pitch up should show a good sized raspberry on her hip if she wants to hang with the group she swims with...

6-12th place pretty close finish and yea team GBR is stacked monster..... perhaps the athletes should do like some kenyans and get exported run for other countries ha ha. So awesome that Lucy can compete top level from sprint to 140.6 yet all these threads about sanders and iden

To be fair, Iden is also performing across all of the distances similarly to Lucy.

And yes, generally there are very few people in the fields that can bridge solo to a lead group (Knibb and Spirig being two of them). LCB's case was a little interesting in that she really got dropped not because of engine, but because of technique, the gap opened up in a technical section, where her cornering put her out the back. You can sometimes leverage a straighter section to bridge that gap, but if you start going backwards, after a lap, that's where you have to think about sitting up and waiting for the next group, rather than frying yourself sitting in between for 15km... These lessons will come with experience, and she'll get there with a fuller season of WTCS racing...

Helen Jenkins made that point - she had the power not the technique - in the broadcast near the end of the first lap. I dont think so. I think she doesn't have the needed 3-5 second power. The string snaps at 17:48 race time going up a hill (take a look). And she was losing time coming out of the turns(when they press the accelerator) not due to her turn angles.

For the first time I can remember an absolute stacked women's field and a prety average men's field.

(What's happening with Mola and Gomez?)

Wilde needs to sort his run out, he seems to surge too early, burn himself out and go backwards, did it a couple of times in Superleague.

Absolutely fascinating women's field, think we was only missing Zaferes and Spirig.

Quite surprised not to see LCB lead out the swim, I wonder if that was tactical from her or she just found it too fast?

Business as usual though from GTB, Duffy and Learmonth front pack group with the lead they put into everyone (with the added firepower of Knibb)

Got very annoyed with the shoddy camera work, they was on a track, how hard was it? We missed the crucial part of the race after GTB caught Duffy we missed Duffy drop GTB, we missed Coldwell drop Learmonth and we seen nothing of the battle between Potter/Stanford/Beaugrand/Holland etc lots of helicopter shots though!

Brit females are absolutely stacked at the moment 6 in a top 10 can't have been done before?

Did you hear about Wilde's pre race build up? Not surprised he faded a bit

I'm not sure we're right, but I agree with you.
I thought it looked like she couldn't make the bike go super fast. Obviously she has as good of a diesel engine as anyone else in the field. But I doubt she could 20k TT with Knibb, Flora, or Jess.

Women's race was missing Katie (possibly out of DL) and Spirig (pretty sure she's done DL).
Kingma, Periault, and Kasper are the only top guns who will be racing next year, that didn't make the start.
It was pretty cool just how competitive it was on the women's side.
Just look at how chaotic the chase was in the first few laps. Lots of shifting around and nothing was defined.

I've been told it was so mixed up in the chase that no one really knew what place they where in. Not a lot of out-and-backs.

I wonder if 6 out of 10 has been done before. Maybe by australia? Did the US women ever do that when they had three on the podium?

Not heard anything about his build up? As I said though he has this habit of going off the front, surging, fading and going backwards.

Maybe less surging and a different approach.

We had a short period of Gwen, True and Zafares being prety much the top 3 women but I don't remember them having another 3 in the top 10 at the time.

I thought Learmonth and Holland were both calling it a day after the Olympics but I'm guessing they're both sticking around for Commonwealth games at least?

Is it three slots each for Commonwealth? How is the selection working if it was based on last race?

Basically got detained in immigration twice on both flights and arrived a hour or so before the race start. Then got stung by a jellyfish. He does put in some crazy surges in at times and can be a bit too much Go Hard or Go Home. But then again that approach got him an Olympic medal.

The Australians definitely have had 6 in the top 10 but we might be going back to pre WTS when world Cup was essentially the WTS.

Not sure about selection for Commys as each home nation will be different. I actually can't see LCB making the England team as its GTB, Learmouth and Coldwell/Holland. Stanford and Potter for Wales and Scotland.

Commonwealths

England - GTB, Coldwell and Learmonth
Wales - Stanford and Mathias?
Scotland - Potter and ?

I think Katie Waugh is Scottish but not sure.

Waugh may have a Scottish granny but not to my knowledge.

Sophia Green is a solid, improving U23 that is probably good enough for B'Ham although haven't studied the selection criteria.

Is this the selected team? I'm quite surprised Holland is still racing then, prety sure she said she was calling it a day after Tokyo, unless now not being selected means she will retire.

a little humility is always good when speculating what a professional could do to perform better, especially one as good as LCB. But I went back and watched Leeds and saw the same thing. There was some interactions with Spivey in particular where you could feel that one athlete was simply stronger than the other over the short bursts.