Cassandre Beaugrand became World Champion Sprint in Hamburg this evening. The Frenchwoman decided a thrilling race during the run and proved inimitable to all the other favorites.
Only the top 30 women started today – after qualifying yesterday through the semifinals and repachage – and the race was over three heats of 300-meter swim, 7-kilometer bike and 1.6-kilometer run. In the first and second heats, the last 10 women dropped out, leaving 10 to start in the third and all-deciding heat. You can find the full top thirty at the bottom of this article.
In the all-decisive heat, Laura Lindemann came out of the water first and almost all women – except Cathia Schär, who came out of the water at 19 seconds – connected. Thus a leading group of nine women emerged on the bike. As happened in all the heats, little changed on the bike; the course was fast and technically equal, making breakaways almost impossible. Still it soon became clear that the pace was not that fast in the leading group, because Schär managed to fight her way back to the leading group on her own and thus make up almost twenty seconds of ground.
Beth Potter had the fastest transition and left T2 first, but Cassandre Beaugrand actually took over the lead immediately knowing that there were “only” 1600 meters to run. The pace was therefore very high and no one could follow both ladies, even though the differences were logically small. As Beaugrand continued to push the pace, Potter began to crack more and more, and so it appeared that Beaugrand would win the race. She ended up staying 11 seconds ahead of Potter and 13 seconds ahead of Lindemann.
Women Heat 3:
- Cassandre Beaugrand
- Beth Potter
- Laura Lindemann
- Annika Koch
- Marlene Gomez-Göggel
- Nicole van der Kaay
- Taylor Spivey
- Cathia Schär
- Jolien Vermeylen
- Summer Rappaport
Women Heat 2:
- Jeanne Lehair
- Rachel Klamer
- Verena Steinhauser
- Kirsten Kasper
- Anabel Knoll
- Zsanett Bragmayer
- Lena Meissner
- Katie Zaferes
- Alberte Kjar Pedersen
- Sophie Linn
Women Heat 1:
- Ainsley Thorpe
- Solveig Lovseth
- Lisa Tertsch
- Emma Jackson
- Lizeth Rueda Santos
- Nora Gmür
- Natalie van Coevorden
- Julia Hauser
- Selina Klamt
- Gwen Jorgensen
