2024. Review of Olympic and Paralympic selections.

First race, after some delay, was the Olympic Women's event and I had gone for Lisa Tertsch ahead of Beth Potter and Cassandre Beaugrand.

15 athletes had exited the water spread over 46 seconds but with with a 38 second gap to the next athlete and the reality is the race was over after 9 minutes of swim lap 1 for most with too much power at the front to come back against. Julie Derron was the last of those 15 and nobody from behind would make the top 10.

After a short chase the front group came together behind Duffy but Tertsch was taken out in a crash involving Vittoria Lopes, Kirsten Kasper and Jolien Vermeylen. Lopes, seemingly under no real pressure, locked up coming into a corner at the back of the group which may have distracted Kasper who slides out taking Vermeylen and Tertsch with her. The crash also slowed Bianca Seregni who had to avoid it and none of those impacted sees the front again. 

From this point, lap 2 on the bike, we have a 10k running race to decide the winner from a group of 10. I had Derron down as a tier 2 chance for the win, a list of those who could win if everything went right and there was some chaos taking out all the faster runners. I had chosen Potter over Beaugrand as I was not convinced the pressure wouldn’t get to the French athletes. In the end Beaugrand was simply superb, Derron got the better of all but one of the favourites but needed just one more to break, and Potter comes home in 3rd. 

Could Tertsch have won without the crash? I would say she probably finishes second but it would have been interesting.

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Men's Race

In the men's race my selections were Alex Yee ahead of Vasco Vilaca with Hayde Wilde 3rd. This was a very straightforward typical men's race. From lap 2 on the bike it was always going to be all the main players in a 10k run. While a 19 man front group had formed they ended the lap with only 22 seconds between the back of group 1 and  and the front of group 2 including Wilde, Kristian Blummenfelt and Vilaca.

I had picked Sam Dickinson as the most important athlete in the event as I couldn't see anyone outrunning Yee if he was at the front starting the run. Dickinson put in a huge turn at the end of the bike which ensured a safe entry to transition and it was here that the race was decided. Yee crossed the line in 16th but emerged 4th from transition while Wilde got off the bike ahead of him and came out 4 seconds and multiple places behind with Vilaca lost, back in the bunch another 4 seconds back.

The run splits then tell a tale of too much too soon, and too little too late. Of the 8 run splits Wilde goes fastest on the 1st 4, then 2nd fastest on the next 2 and then 7th and 16th. In comparison Yee was ranked =1, =2, =7, =5, 1, =3, =4, =3.  So while it looked on screen like he had broken in reality he was just doing a time trial effort. Vilaca was flying in the third quarter of the run, faster than both Yee and Wilde,but the damage had been done, ranking 10. 19, 11 and 8 over the 1st 4 splits before finishing 2, 1, 2 and 6. 

Could the result have been different? It looks like Wilde didn't want to take Yee to a sprint and felt he had to break him. This certainly wasn't helped by starting so far back but he went for it and that's what you do, no point racing for second. He also had to do a bit of riding on the bike which Yee didn't which also went against him. My pick for the silver, Vilaca, started lap 2 of 4 on the run 25 seconds down with a slow start to the run just compounding the poor transition and he never had a chance. 

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Women's PTVI

Looking at the Paratriathlon races with Irish involvement in the women’s PTVI class later in the month I had the right 3 but picked the wrong winner. Gold and Silver were obvious and simple without any mishaps and Suzanna Rodriguez along with Sara Perez Sala got the better of Franceca Tarantello and Silvia Visaggi. 

Tarantello is an excellent swimmer and I had picked her based on the tough swim and being able to close the 3 minute 11 second gap from the B1 athletes to B3 but that didn't take into account just how good Rodriguez and Perez Sala swim together and how that would impact their time in the upstream section against a very strong current. Reviewing the available footage we can see just how compact the pair are and how close Rodriguez can swim to Perez Sala’s side and the impact of that on drafting. Really impressive to watch.

Tarantello and Visaggi went fastest but only recovered 72 seconds and were never in the race for gold. Behind Anja Renner and Maria Paulig were too good for the rest with the fastest bike split of the day and running only a few seconds slower than the gold and silver pairings.  

Chloe Maccombe and Catherine Sands along with Judith Maccombe and Eimear Nicholls finished 6th and 8th. I thought either pair could have been in with a shout of a medal if everything went perfect for them but the swim cost both pairs any chance. Their best performances have come on days where the gap on the swim has been controlled as neither pair has the swim pace of the top athletes. They had 2 of the 3 fastest bikes with Judith slightly ahead while Chloe was the best runner of those outside the medals.

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Women's PTS4

In the PTS4 women's race I had picked Kelly Elmlinger and Grace Brimelow as my favourites with a slight edge for Brimelow as she was quite new to the sport and progressing quickly. For the bronze I had it between Marta Frances Gomes, Megan Richter, Sally Pimbeam and Elise Marc but felt it was quite open.

With Elmlinger not starting due to sickness overnight I was still very happy with my prediction at the end of the swim as Brimelow led out of the water. Unfortunately that was to be the last we would see her until she was 6th to cross the finish line. This did not tell anything of the day she had though, as she disappeared from the leaderboard not long into the bike having gone through transition rather than down the side on one of the laps and been disqualified. 

Based on the timing sheets Brimelow appears to have been the fastest on the day but was over 5 minutes slower than the winner, Richter, over the final split from 4.5Km to the finish. Brimelow has limited experience outside of Oceania and a couple of DSQs so lack of racing is likely the cause of misreading the routes.

Richter had chased down Hannah Moore who had come out of the water alongside Brimelow. Frances Gomes moved into 2nd place also on the run while Moore held on to the bronze. 

Cassie Cava was racing here for Ireland but she had a really tough day slipping just before the start and injuring her leg so didn't have the day she would have wanted with a lot of pain particularly finishing out the run.

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