Not that many people will have doubted it, but Georgia Taylor-Brown can still do it. The top British athlete just won – after a rather exciting race – the WTCS in Cagliari, Italy. For a long time Taylor-Brown went side by side with Emma Lombardi, but in the closing stages she pulled the race to her own.
The swim was led by Vittoria Lopes (18:08) and Summer Rappaport (18:10) but on the bike, a leading group of six women immediately formed, including some big favorites: Emma Lombardi, Vittoria Lopes, Taylor Spivey, Georgia Taylor-Brown, Summer Rappaport and Maya Kingma. Despite a large peloton forming behind the six women, the women stayed out of the hands of their pursuers throughout the bike leg. In fact; their lead slowly but surely built from half a minute to nearly a minute and a half.
After the second transition, Taylor-Brown and Lombardi immediately took off in pairs and quickly managed to increase their lead. At the same time, Spivey ran to third position quite quickly, but she saw ladies like Cassandre Beaugrand and Jeanne Lehair closing in behind her.
An exciting battle for the medals ensued at the front, which was eventually won by Taylor-Brown. She ran away from Lombardi – who stayed on Taylor-Brown’s trail for a long time – in the closing kilometers and was thus good for victory. She claimed that in a time of 1:46:43. Lombardi followed 24 seconds later in second and Spivey, who had to push herself to the limit to stay ahead of her pursuers, finished third at 53 seconds behind.
