Abu Dhabi played host to the final WTCS race of the season and the world title was on the line for the women. Could Georgia Taylor-Brown hold off Duffy or would the Bermudian claim her fourth world title?

Swim – Duffy leads the way

With Duffy and Taylor-Brown being two of the top swimmers in the field the race was going to be hot from the start. However it was Taylor Knibb who led the way through the first lap of the swim. She pulled along a group of 13 athletes featuring Duffy, Taylor Brown, Beth Potter, Vittoria Lopes, Summer Rappaport, Cassandre Beaugrand, Lena Meißner and Laura Lindemann.

The next pack was around 6 seconds back and included Taylor Spivey, Maya Kingma and Sophie Coldwell. With Knibb setting the pace at the front I was wondering at this point if she was going to breakaway at the start of the bike, like she did in Edmonton in 2021.

Knibb’s pace slowed on the second lap and Duffy, Rappaport, Lopes and Taylor-Brown come round, with Duffy exiting the water first. The front group remained broadly the same but Kingma had been able to swim up to bridge the gap. The top 13 came out of the water within 14 seconds of each other. Spivey’s group was still 6 seconds back, just enough of a gap to leave her in no mans land.

Bike – Lead pack breaks away and stays away

Duffy and Taylor-Brown were quick through T1 and mounted their bikes first, closely followed by Potter. Knibb has struggled with her transitions recently, she lost the chase pack in Bermuda and she came close to doing the same here, losing 5-7 seconds to her competitors.

A lead pack of 8 athletes was quickly established with Rappaport and Beaugrand getting dropped. Knibb sat 8 seconds back halfway through the first lap of the bike but she was able to close this to 3 seconds by the end of the lap and latched back on. The now 9 strong lead pack included Duffy, Taylor-Brown, Potter, Knibb, Meißner, Lopes, Lindemann, Kingma and Lisa Tertsch. Spivey missed the break and was sat 13 seconds back with fellow America Kirsten Kasper.

The front pack were working very well together and putting time into the chasers on every lap. Tertsch and Lindemann were dropped from the group of lap 3 and were swept up by the chasing Spivey and Kasper.

Knibb tried a couple of attacks on the third lap, dropping off the back of the group and then loading up the power to blow past. However Duffy and Taylor-Brown could see what she was trying to do and marked the moves well. Then it was Duffy who attacked on lap 4 and got a 50m gap but again was quickly reeled in by the chasers. This surge seemed to break Potter who became the 3rd athlete to get dropped.

The now pack of 6 would stay together until the end of lap 7 where Knibb crashed on the final turn, she went down hard and took down Kingma as well. Duffy and Taylor-Brown were already ahead, while Lopes and Meißner were able to avoid the bikes and bodies on the ground. Luckily Knibb and Kingma were fine and were able to keep racing but they had been dropped from the front. Knibb lost additional time as she had to get her chain back on.

The front four of Duffy, Taylor-Brown, Lopes and Meißner came into T2 together, over 30 seconds up on Knibb and Kingma and nearly 2:30 over the other chasers.

Run – Duffy breaks away for the title

Taylor-Brown was the fastest through T2 and gained a small advantage over the other athletes from the lead pack. Duffy gradually reeled Taylor-Brown in and by the end of the first lap they were running stride for stride. Lopes and Meißner couldn’t handle the pace and started to lose time to the front.

Meißner was still running well, despite dropping back from the leaders, and had got good separation from Lopes and was putting time into Knibb. By the end of lap 2 Knibb was closing in on Lopes in 4th place. Further back, the French pair of Leonie Periault and Emma Lombardi were running really well and had moved up into 6th and 8th.

The leading pair continued to run together until Duffy broke away on the 3rd lap. Taylor-Brown wasn’t able to respond and Duffy established a 25 second lead by the end of the lap. This was the defining moment of the race and Duffy held strong and increased her lead to over a minute to take the win.

Leonie Periault had the second fastest run of the day at 32:54 and moved up from 32nd to 5th overall. France have some of the best runners in the sport with Periault, Lombardi and Beaugrand.

Results

Another impressive performance from Duffy to take the race and her fourth world title. It’s strange to think that she was close to leaving short course racing after the Olympics. Can she add a fifth world title next year?

1. Flora Duffy – 1:53:24
2. Georgia Taylor-Brown – 1:54:28
3. Lena Meißner – 1:55:59
4. Taylor Knibb – 1:56:40
5. Leonie Periault – 1:56:51

World Triathlon Championship Series – Final Standings

1. Georgia Taylor-Brown – 5,105.63
2. Flora Duffy – 5,081.25
3. Taylor Knibb – 4,179.23
4. Taylor Spivey – 3,889.44
5. Cassandre Beaugrand – 3,801.32