After an impressive run, in which she completely decided the race in her favor, Lisa Tertsch has just won the World Triathlon Cup Tangier. The German athlete was already particularly strong at the WTCS Grand Finals in Pontevedra last week and proved to be world class once again this week. The race was the first ever World Triathlon Cup in North Africa and covered the Sprint Distance.
After the swim in a pretty choppy ocean, a small group of three and later four women formed on the bike, chased by a large peloton. Nothing really special happened, were it not for the fact that the small leading group did manage to increase their lead over the chasers. Once back in T2, their lead was about forty seconds.
During the run, a nice battle initially developed at the front between Mathilde Gautier and Zsanett Kuttor-Bragmayer, who went side by side for the first few kilometers. Just before the start of the second and final lap, however, it was German Lisa Tertsch, who passed the front runners and Spanish Noelia Juan immediately followed the German favourite.
Tertsch kept accelerating in the second lap, but could not get rid of Juan, who was running remarkably strong. The race was at the cutting edge and the two women were clearly the strongest of the field. Behind them, at about fifteen seconds, there was a nice chasing group including Jolien Vermeylen, Vicky Holland and Rachel Klamer.
With a kilometer to go, Tertsch accelerated once again and that acceleration proved too much for Juan. As a result, Tertsch won the race in a time of 58:46. Juan finished second at 12 seconds and Tilda Mansson, who sprinted past Vermeylen and Klamer in the closing stages, finished third at 16 seconds.
