Vincent Luis and Georgia Taylor-Brown both won in Bahrain yesterday, and they both won by less than a minute.
Also, Vincent has joined the 1:06:XX club, and he joins Kristian, Frodeno, and who else?
GTB with a fast run too, 1:14, I wonder if she is going to stick around in the middle distance.
Looks like Luis lost 3 mins to Margirier on the bike, then got him back around 18km into the run. Good result, but Iād say heās got work to do on the TT bike if heās to challenge MVR, Greens and Wilde at this distance.
GTBās win is impressive. Alistair Brownlee named her a while back as the best-suited female short course athlete to step up - looks like he might have been right (not that we should be surprised).
2nd place female has 1400 follower on insta. and looking that the tracker was pushing the pace for the first 8 k on the run . neubert is obviously a very strong biker in short course so no big suprise,
Isnāt Vincent all of 61 kilos? This does not make for someone who is going to EVER be super strong on a TT bike. Its just the way it is. I think in a deep field with bigger riders he would have a tough time
Itās definitely holding Remco back
Per some online stats, heās more like 65-66 kilos.
Having said that, @marcag is correct about Remcoās TT abiliities so my universal statement was wrong, but it is kind of right if your watts per kilo are 5W per kilo vs 6W per kilo, because the 700 wheels are still amortized as a fixed cost at speed, so the higher the top line watts, the better the ratio for overcoming that fixed penalty that all riders face for wheel related drag.
There are almost no male triathletes in history that small who have lead bike legs in deep fields in non draft racing. Probably because the topline watts are just not high enough to overcome their wheel drag penalty
Heās 5ā10", and when you look at him in short-course racing, he doesnāt strike me as someone āsmallā,
I remember watching him in the early super leagues, thinking he was quite big - almost āmuscularā looking. Then I saw him next to a normal-sized human being, and the illusion was shattered.
OK sorry, I thought he was a lot lighter and smaller. Disregard the entire discussion related to 61 kilo tri athletes.
Both have nailed down T100 āhot shotā contract offers.
GTB rode pretty well on the TT bike (2:12), a few minutes slower than Matthews last year, but well quicker on the run.
Van Riel was a minute quicker last year (riding on the front or alone) than Margirier was this year. Latter is a good benchmark (after his T100 successes this year): Luis (as said) lost 3 minutes to him, sucking (12m) wheels for the full 90.3km.
But Luis ran 3 minutes faster than Van Riel did last year.
Have to expect both GTB and Luis to be leading the swim in all their races next year, if they so want - GTB with Spivey and Duffy, and LCB when she races.
Glad GTB seems to have passed the āwill she be any good at longer stuffā test.
Interesting angle for T100, get Learmonth signed up and they have another āweāre best matesā story they can push (Lee and Matthews) with the added bonus of the Olympic gold medals.
Equally I wouldnāt mind seeing GTB go back into ITU next year, (injury issues aside) sheās potentially got another Olympics in her.
Thatās quite the swim progression for GTB over several years. Sheās gone from unable to make the front back, to just holding Spiveyās feet to now forecast to be leading the swim in the coming year. I agree sheāll likely be always making the front pack but perhaps not leading it especially if sheās using her head. Youāll have noticed that Alistair, all though fully able to lead most any swim, nearly always would be found ~ 3rd taking full advantage of the feet in front of him.
YMMV
Hugh
I had the idea that GTB has always been front pack swimmer. Remind me how the individual in Tokyo panned out (and see other breakaways in 2019-2021). Her injury interludes and other travails since then have maybe masked those for you.
I agree she may take the āin the packā approach but if she and other swim strong athletes wish to compete with Knibb, Gentle and Derron, they are going to need to establish a gap before exiting T1.
No, she use to have trouble making the front pack. Thereās an interview video out there somewhere where she talks about learning to hold on to Spiveyās feet for all she was worth as long as she could and finally was able to do it for the whole swim.
Ironically, I believe at the time, the two were somewhat friendly too.
I can only remember once (start of last year?) Were she struggled on the swim in her career, sheās been consistently front pack for as long I can remember.
I assume Bahrain was a salt water wetsuit swim for all? Or was it no wetsuit for pros?
No wetsuit for pros
I wish I could easily pull up the interview. It was many years ago definitely before Tokyo. Iāve been watching her progress for a good long time.
Riccitello