Leeds leg of World Triathlon Series hailed a success for second time
Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee delighted their hometown crowd with a repeat gold and silver performance at the Columbia Threadneedle World Triathlon Leeds.
Last updated 11th Jun 2017
Adam Bowden and Tom Bishop added to the celebrations with fourth and fifth, and Jess Learmonth was sixth in the women’s race in front of over 50,000 fans.
Jonathan Brownlee was second after the 1500m swim in Waterloo Lake, with Alistair just behind him. Precision and speed during the transition to the bike section saw the brothers establish a small group with two Frenchmen, Pierre Le Corre and Aurelien Raphael. With the chase pack closing in on them, they made a break on their own on the approach into the city centre.
Initially with just a seven second gap, they stretched their lead to ninety seconds by the start of the run. They ran together for 5km before Alistair edged away towards a repeat win in Leeds.
Duffy wins again
Jess Learmonth was supreme leading the swim and up the hill out of the first transition. However, she made the call to wait for her team mate, Non Stanford, leaving ITU World Champion, Flora Duffy to disappear towards the city centre with Taylor Spivey (USA), Alice Betto (ITA), and Maya Kingma (NED).
The tactics didn’t pay off today, with Stanford having been unwell since the previous round in Yokohama and unable to capitalize on the support. Learmonth was still able to get her best Series result after a sprint finish with Gillian Backhouse of Austra
Thousands compete
Just under 3000 people completed in amateur events during the weekend, from juniors and novices to leading athletes competing on the same course as the elites in the British Triathlon Age Group standard distance championships.
It's led to calls from Council and triathlon bosses for Leeds to become a permanent fixture of the World Triathlon Series for years to come.
Leader of Leeds City Council Councillor Judith Blake, said: “We have once again been blown away by the truly incredible support shown by the people of our city, Yorkshire and beyond to the second Columbia Threadneedle World Triathlon Leeds.
“To see some of the world’s greatest triathletes competing in Leeds as part of the World Triathlon Series was fantastic and made us extremely proud. We have again shown that Leeds as a city has both the capability and expertise to host truly global sporting events.
“On a final note, I would like to thank everyone who worked so hard, including of course the many volunteers who gave up their free time, to help make the weekend a tremendous success.”