Polyanskiy, Samuels in Tongyeong
Dmitry Polyanskiy of Russia and Nicky Samuels of New Zealand won the Tongyeong ITU World Cup men’s and women’s titles Saturday in Korea.
The Men
Polyanskiy won his second Tongyeong World Cup in a row and shared the podium with his younger brother Igor, who took his first-ever ITU World Cup medal with a 3rd place finish behind runner-up Marek Jaskolka of Poland.
Dmitry finished in 1:48:39 with a 27 seconds margin of victory over Jaskolka and 43 seconds on his brother Igor.
The Polyanskiy brothers worked together on the swim and bike to set each other up for the run. Dmitry, who stands high on the 2012 elite ITU World Triathlon Series ratings after finishing 3rd at Yokohama, 3rd at Madrid, 5th at Kitzbuhel and also finished 21st at the London Olympics, drew away on the run with a race-best 31:30 split that was 30 seconds better than runner-up Jaskolka and 48 seconds better than his brother.
“I’m very happy, I have the victory again,” said Polyanskiy. “It’s a very good swimming course here, fast water and Raoul Shaw had the best swim today.”
Shaw swam 15:01, Polyanskiy’s brother Igor was 2nd in 15:02 and Dmitry was 3rd out of the water in 15:05.
“The bike course is a little hilly so for me it’s very good too,” said Dmitry, who posted a tied-for-8th-best 1:01:00 bike split – one second behind his brother.
“Today I think I showed a good performance and I feel rested after the Olympic Games.”
Shaw led the field into T2 followed closely by Jaskolka, who made up for his deficit after a 15:36 swim with a 4th-best 1:00:30 bike split. While Shaw faded to 9th with a 33:19 10 kilometer final leg, Dmitry Polyanskiy took control on the first lap of the run and was never challenged.
Jaskolka was thrilled with his second-ever World Cup medal.
“I’m very happy it’s my best international result so far,” said Jaskolka, who won a bronze at the Ishigaki World Cup in 2011. “I had a really good swim today, but I felt really tired on the bike. On the run I tried not to push too hard on the first lap because I knew it would be really hot and I struggled really on the last two laps.”
Igor Polyanskiy was happy with his first World Cup medal – and with the way he and his brother worked together.
“My brother helped me in the whole race, on the swim we swam together on the bike we worked together the whole time,” said Igor. “We are happy because we are both on the podium.”
The Women
Nicky Samuels led the race wire-to-wire and thus earned her second ITU World Cup title, finishing in 2:01:51 with a 9-seconds margin of victory over runner-up Maria Czesnik of Poland and 12 seconds over 3rd-place finisher Yuka Sato of Japan.
Samuels led out of the swim in 17:27, and then teamed with Korea’s Yun-Jung Jang in a two woman bike breakaway that earned the duo a 1 minute 45 seconds lead at T2 over a chase pack that included Australians Charlotte McShane, Ashlee Bailie, Natalie Van Coevorden, New Zealander Rebecca Kingsford, Czesnik and Anna Burova of Russia.
While Jang faded to 10th with a 41-27 10k run, Samuels posted a 7th-best 38:27 run that was just enough to hold off the hard charging runs of Czesnik (36:45) and Sato (36:46) for the win.
“I wanted to have a strong swim, be strong to that first buoy, so once I got there I just set my race up from there really,” Samuels said after the race. “The race plan never really goes to plan, but I wanted to go on the bike and bring one other with me and it happened from the start, so it was playing out perfectly and a good enough time on the run, I knew I could hang in there.”
Czesnik was happy with her second straight World Cup podium after a silver at Guatape two weeks ago. “I lost the first group on the swimming, so I had to chase them on the bike,” said Czesnik. “Then on the run I thought that the gap between the first group was too big so I didn’t even think about chasing them, but I was trying to get on the podium. On the last lap I saw that Nicky was very close and I started to chase her but it was just too late.”
Sato earned her first World Cup podium, 3 seconds behind Czesnik.
Tongyeong ITU Triathlon World Cup
Tongyeong, Korea
September 22, 2012
S 1.5k / B 40k / R 10k
Results
Women
1. Nicky Samuels (NZL) 2:01:51
2. Maria Czesnik (POL) 2:02:00
3. Yuka Sato (JPN) 2:02:03
4. Charlotte McShane (AUS) 2:02:29
5. Natalie Van Coevorden (AUS) 2:03:11
6. Charlotte Morel (FRA) 2:03:37
7. Rebecca Kingsford (NZL) 2:03:40
8. Anna Burova (RUS) 2:04:11
9. Ashlee Bailie (AUS) 2:04:20
10. Yun-Jung Jang (KOR) 2:04:52
Men
1. Dmitry Polyanskiy (RUS) 1:48:39
2. Marek Jaskolka (POL) 1:49:06
3. Igor Polyanskiy (RUS) 1:49:22
4. Sylvester Kuster (POL) 1:49:40
5. Ji Hwan Kim (KOR) 1:49:51
6. Akos Vanek (HUN) 1:49:54
7. Ryan Fisher (AUS) 1:49:59
8. Ryan Bailie (AUS) 1:50:06
9. Raoul Shaw (FRA) 1:50:21
10. Drew Box (AUS) 1:50:25
