After her second place finish last week – then at the Supertri Boston – Georgia Taylor-Brown has just won the Supertri Chicago. For Taylor-Brown of course it was a relief to once again take her place on the top step of the podium.
In Chicago – just like last week in Boston a new location for Supertri – the program, like all Supertri races, featured the Enduro format. The Enduro format involves a 300 meter swim, a 4km bike and 1.6km run, and when that’s done, the athletes dive straight into the water for a second heat over the same distances. Even after that, it’s not finished, because again without a break, a third and all-deciding heat then follows. If athletes swim, bike or run ninety seconds behind the front-runner, they will be taken out of the race and thus eliminated early.
Heat 1 – Beaugrand makes first difference
In the first heat it was Brazilian Vittoria Lopes who came out of the water first, but everyone was close together. On the bike it was the same and there it was then Jessica Fullagar who started to push hard. This caused the large group to split up a bit.
During the run, last week’s winner, Jeanne Lehair, went to the front, together with Beth Potter, Cassandre Beaugrand and Georgia Taylor-Brown: this foursome got away from the rest and in the final meters Beaugrand managed to drop those three women as well. She closed the first heat with a lead of a few meters.
Heat 2 – big names back together again
Lehair, Taylor-Brown and Potter rejoined Beaugrand as soon as she entered the water already, and Kirsten Kasper, Taylor Spivey, Fanni Szalai, Alice Betto and Olivia Mathias joined them soon after. This group also stayed together on the bike and even during the run no more differences were forced.
Heat 3 – Taylor-Brown finishes it off
While no new differences emerged during the swim, that did happen on the bike: Spivey went full on the attack, riding away from the rest of the leading group along with Mathias, Taylor-Brown and Fullagar. It opened up a wonderful prospect for the final run.
During that final run, however, it quickly became apparent that Taylor-Brown had the fastest legs and she ended up running to a nice victory. Beaugrand followed in second at six seconds and Spivey in third at 12 seconds.
