After an exhilarating women’s race on Saturday, the attention turned to the men on Sunday. With a later start time the heat was already bearing down and there seemed to be some nervousness around how the athletes would deal with the rising temperature.
Swim – Slow start keeps the pack together
With many top swimmers on the start line we expected a fast and furious swim that would split up the field. The reality couldn’t have been much further from this. A combination of athletes managing their effort in the warm water and an unwillingness to push to break apart the field led to the top 20 athletes coming out of the first lap within 14 seconds. This meant the gaps back to the contenders with weaker swims were smaller than expected, Lionel Sanders 1:01 back and Sam Long 1:11 back.
The field became more strung out over the second lap with Aaron Royle and Sam Laidlow sharing the work between them. However there was still a reluctance to break away. Aaron Royle lead out a 20 strong group in a time of 26:37, the group included several contenders; Daniel Baekkegard, Florian Angert and Sam Laidlow. Highest ranked athlete Magnus Ditlev was 1.10 back and the gap back to Long and Sanders had extended to around 2:40.
To put this time into perspective, Aaron Royle swam 25 minutes at the Canadian Open and under 23 minutes at the Collins Cup. Comparing course swim times isn’t always apples with apples. Lucy Charles-Barclay is a world class swimmer but we would normally expect a bigger gap than 23 seconds between the lead men and women swimmers.
We have to imagine if Alistair Brownlee had not withdrawn from the race due to injury that he would’ve driven the pace early on and forced the likes of Royle and Laidlow to join him. This could have impacted the entire race dynamics.
Tactical Note – Something we see very often on the bike is leading athletes sitting up to wave through riders drafting to share the workload. Something we haven’t seen before is this happening in the swim. Aaron Royle started doing backstroking to let Sam Laidlow through so that he could get the benefit of sitting on feet. This is very clever from Royle as otherwise he would be pulling the field round for the whole swim.
Bike – Long charges through the field to lead group chasing Angert
Ben Kanute was the first out of T1 and led out a large pack of riders. Sam Laidlow moved to the front and on the second lap started to ride away from the group. Angert followed him in hot pursuit and they establish a gap. Through 40k this had stretched to over a minute. Meanwhile Long had bridged across to an 11 strong chase pack featuring Baekkegard, Ditlev, Royle and Collin Chartier. The surprise here was that Sanders chose not to follow Long and sat a further 30 seconds back.
With 36k to go Angert attacked Laidlow off the front and was able to build a 20 second lead over the next lap and a half. Long and Ditlev had moved to the front of the chase group and started laying down the power. They reduced the gap to 1:11 and split the chasers, only Baekkegard and Chartier were able to follow them.
Heading onto the final lap Angert’s lead sat at one minute. Laidlow had been caught by the chase group of Long, Ditlev and Chartier, with Baekkegard getting dropped. Angert maintained this gap over the final lap coming into T2 first. Ditlev and Long pulled away from Chartier and Laidlow, coming in with a 10 second advantage. Sanders come into T2 with a 2:30 deficit, not insurmountable if he had been holding back on the bike.
Run – Chartier charges through
Angert was first out on the run but his advantage had been cut through transition, Long charged out of T2 looking like a man on a mission. Angert had set off at a steady pace and was caught by Long at the end of the first lap, the American moving into first with Ditlev 21 seconds back and Chartier 46 seconds back. Chartier and Ditlev passed Angert by the end of the second lap and with Laidlow dropping back it was going to be a show down between the two Americans and the Dane.
Ditlev gradually chipped away at Long’s lead but Chartier looked the strongest and was able to pass Ditlev as they started the fourth lap. Chartier now had his sights set on catching Long, running just 15 seconds ahead. Chartier drew level with Long with 5k to go and the pair ran side by side before Chartier stepped up the pace. Long tried to follow but couldn’t match Chartier’s pace. Chartier continued to build a lead over Long, meanwhile Ditlev was closing the gap to Long in a race for 2nd. Chartier crossed the line first with a run split of just over an hour, 2nd fastest on the day. Ditlev bridged up to Long in the final 400m and was able to put in a burst of speed to get away and stop there being an American 1, 2 on the podium.
Tactical Note – Sam Long opted for no socks for the run. He had the fastest transition by 10 seconds and gained 18 seconds on the leader Florian Angert. This is free time as long as the shoes are comfortable.
Results
A strong all round performance for Chartier, he was able to hang with Ditlev and Long on the bike and then outrun the contenders to take the victory. He will three of the other top 5 finishes at Kona, with Sam Long deciding to focus on middle distance.
Jason West had the fastest run of the day, with a split of 58:54, this moved him up from 31st to 12th and earned him an extra $11k.
A disappointing day for Lionel Sanders, he chose not to follow Long on the bike which could’ve been a smart decision if he was holding back for the run. However he posted 1:08:52 run, 25th fastest, to finish in 21st position. To rub salt in the wound Rudy Von Berg sprinted past him on the finishing straight to break into the top 20.
- Collin Chartier – 3:17:16
- Magnus Ditlev – 3:17:58
- Sam Long – 3:18:08
- Sam Laidlow – 3:20:28
- Florian Angert – 3:21:13
Full results available here.
Collin Chartier was ranked #28 in the PTO rankings coming into Dallas. This breakthrough win will catapult him up the rankings. A score in the region of 108 could move him up to 11th.
Triathlon Insights 
Leave a comment