It was exciting to the very last millimeter at the WTCS Sunderland: after a beautiful final sprint, Pierre le Corre won the race, beating Leo Bergere and Hayden Wilde, among others.
The swim, in a pretty wild North Sea, was led by Chase McQueen, who came out of the water after 8:48 minutes and had completed his 750 meters. The entire field was within 30 seconds of each other and the chances were open for all athletes.
Unfortunately not much happened on the bike; initially there was a leading group of thirteen men, followed by two larger groups. The first group was about twenty seconds behind the leading group, while the second group would sink further and further. Yet not much later the leading group fell apart, with three men who ran off together; Léo Bergere, Ricardo Batista and Tayler Reid, and back in T2 they had a lead of over ten seconds over the first chasing group, which was quite large at that point.
During the run, everything fans wished for, happened. Hayden Wilde, Leo Bérgere and Pierre le Corre were running side by side for a long time, making the race very exciting and also very hard to predict who was going for victory.
Bérgere’s was the first to push it a bit more in the closing stages, but Le Corre and Wilde reacted quickly and immediately hooked up again. Then Wilde did exactly the same; pushing up the pace, but that was not enough either, because then it was Le Corre who went over it with another effort. Wilde was the first to lose connection, just 200 meters before the finish, and in a phenomenal sprint it was Le Corre who took the victory, just 1 second ahead of Bergere. Wilde finished third at 16 seconds.
