Vincent Luis will look to see off his training partners to collect his first ITU world title in Lausanne on Saturday. Advertisement The French triathlete decided to skip the Tokyo Olympic test event a fortnight ago to prepare thoroughly and requires no worse than a fifth place finish to lift the trophy. The omens are good for Luis. The 30-year-old has excelled in previous Grand Final competitions, winning in 2017 in Rotterdam and last year in Gold Coast. And in six WTS races in 2019, only once has he finished outside the top five, and that was a sixth place finish in Leeds. His closest rival is training partner under…

Vincent Luis’ decision to miss the Tokyo test event to focus on the Grand final was vindicated today as he lifted the 2019 series’ winner’s trophy after a textbook race in the Swiss town of Lausanne.  Advertisement It was Luis’ title to lose heading into the final round of the 2019 World Triathlon Series, after racking up five top-five finishes and one sixth in six races and needing a top-five finish in the final race. Contenders to his throne included the reigning champion Mario Mola, five-time world champion Javier Gomez, Fernando Alarza, Australia’s Jake Birtwhistle and Belgium’s Marten van Riel. And they, along with a punishing Swiss course, a gutsy…

America’s Katie Zaferes rocked up in Lausanne battled-scarred after hitting a crash barrier in the Tokyo test event just two weeks earlier. But the 30-year-old American was in a powerful position heading into the Grand Final, needing a 12thplace finish or better to take her first world title.  Advertisement Her title chase started well, with a decent swim some 17secs behind GB’s Jess Learmonth, who was second in the standings. While Learmonth shot off down the road on a one-woman mission post-T1, Zaferes was able to catch the main chase group and sit in with GB’s Georgia Taylor-Brown (third in the standings pre-race) and Sophie Coldwell, Flora Duffy (first in…

Lucy Charles-Barclay will try to finally turn the tables on a dominant Daniela Ryf by winning a first Ironman 70.3 world title – and put down a marker for the Ironman World Championship next month in Hawaii.  Advertisement The London triathlete has arrived on the Cote d’Azur fit and healthy after an unbeaten season that has seen her victorious in Ironman South Africa, Challenge Roth, and the Challenge Championship for a third consecutive year over the same distance course as they will race in Nice.  But that is about the only similarity between the event in Samorin with its pan-flat bike course and the testing challenge in the south of…

Alistair Brownlee will start in Nice on Sunday knowing that he needs to be on top of his game if he’s to become the first British male to win the Ironman 70.3 world title. Advertisement Simon Lessing, Andrew Johns, Tim Don twice, and Brownlee make up a ‘who’s who’ of British tri talent to have made the podium in the 70.3 worlds without reaching the top step. But to achieve the feat on the Côte d’Azur, the 31-year-old Yorkshireman must defeat one of the strongest fields ever assembled that includes many of the world’s best over all distances. That list is headed by Brownlee’s long-time nemesis Javier Gomez, a five-time…

Switzerland’s Daniela Ryf claimed a fifth Ironman 70.3 title in six years, beating Britain’s Holly Lawrence into second, with Lucy Charles-Barclay having to settle for fifth after receiving a 5min drafting penalty on the bike.  Click Here: liverpool mens jersey Advertisement Ryf, 32, who has also won the past four Ironman world titles in Hawaii, used the descent from the Maritime Alps’ Col de Vence in the second half of the bike leg to do the damage, opening a 2min gap on her rivals that she extended over the half-marathon for a comprehensive 3:58 victory margin.   Lawrence, the 2016 world champion in Mooloolaba who has recovered from a foot injury…

Norway’s Gustav Iden thwarted the dream of Britain’s Alistair Brownlee to win a first Ironman 70.3 world title in Nice. Click Here: liverpool mens jersey Advertisement Yorkshire’s two-time Olympian, 31, had prioritised the race after finishing runner-up to Jan Frodeno last year in South Africa.   But while he was in the leading trio coming off the bike, he proved no match for the foot-speed of Iden in the half-marathon along the Promenade des Anglais, as the 23-year-old Norwegian displaced 2008 winner Terenzo Bozzone as the 70.3 distance’s youngest world champion. Iden stopped the clock at 3:52:35 with Brownlee 2:43 behind in second, a further 86sec clear of local favourite Rudy…

Click:全国楼凤论坛 Representative age-group racing should be celebrated as a great triathlon success story – at its best when those new to the sport realise they have a talent for swim, bike and run and find a route to sporting achievement. With the categories topping out with the 85-89-year-old age-group in last year’s ITU world champs on Gold Coast, it clearly provides invigorating competition, irrespective of age. Click Here: liverpool mens jersey Advertisement It should therefore retain athletes in triathlon for longer, and create camaraderie and a sense of pride in flying the nation’s flag.  Yet its governance is one of the sport’s most thorny issues, and while occasional gripes are…

Is it time for the World Triathlon Series to return to a one-off race for the world title? The question has been often posited since the International Triathlon Union first introduced the multi-race series in 2009 that demands triathletes accrue points throughout the season before lining up for an upweighted Grand Final. Advertisement The sport’s luminaries have long lamented abandoning a single showdown format, among the questioning voices, Alistair Brownlee. The two-time Olympic champion has featured increasingly sparingly since winning a second world title in 2011, but in enjoying the Grand Final spoils four times, has underscored his appetite for one-day competition. The series concept is no failure. It gives…

Why has the PTO made the decision to try and buy Ironman? Ever since Providence Capital Partners first saddled WTC with $200 million debt and prepared for their exit sale, the business has been starved of investment. When WSG acquired WTC it burdened the operation with additional debt, thus restricting any ability of the dedicated management to invest and promote the business. Advertisement Our goal in acquiring the Ironman assets is free it from this excessive debt burden and we are in discussions with partners where a healthy portion of equity is injected into the business to reduce interest payments and increase investment in things like promotion, production, race standards…