A strong run performance saw France’s Leonie Periault claim gold at today’s World Triathlon Cup Karlovy Vary. Second place went to Italy’s Bianca Seregni and the third podium spot was for America’s Summer Rappaport. All three were in front of the race straight from the start and maintained their lead during the run part.
It wasn’t a huge gap, but Rappaport and Seregni created a little advantage for themselves before taking their bikes out of T1. Already int he transition area, some athletes shrunk the gap, though, and they continued doing so in the first few kilometers of the bike part. It didn’t take long before three other athletes caught up with them, which created a lead pack of five: Rappaport, Seregni, Periault, Britain’s Olivia Mathias and Mexico’s Lizeth Rueda Santos.
Behind this small lead pack, a few groups ended up merging into a chase pack of around 25 athletes. They were working hard to try to close the gap, but weren’t able to do so. Some athletes lost touch with the chase group, but in the end a big group of approximately 20 athletes racked their bikes simultaneously, one minute down to the race leaders. Nothing was lost yet, because with some strong runners in that group – among them Swiss Julie Derron and Germany’s Lisa Tertsch – a minute gap could easily be closed.
Periault started her run strong, leaving Rappaport and Seregni behind in a shared second place. For two laps Rappaport and Seregni ran side-by-side trying to hunt down Rappaport, but about halfway through the run Seregni left Rappaport behind. Periault created a lead of 20 seconds over 5000 meters en didn’t stop there. Eventually the French athlete claimed the win, 43 seconds ahead of Seregni who took third. Rappaport rounded the podium (+1:26).
