Brownlee, Shorets win Aquathlon Worlds

Alistair Brownlee of Great Britain edged Richard Varga of Slovakia and Mariya Shorets of Russia dominated the women’s field to take the gold at the ITU Aquathlon World Championship in Cozumel, Mexico.

Men

Brownlee’s race-best 6:53 split for the opening 2.5 kilometer run led Crisanto Grajales of Mexico by 1 second, Richard Allen of Great Britain by 11 seconds, Dmitry Polyanskiy of Russia by 13 seconds, Steffen Justus of Germany by 14 seconds, Tommy Zaferes of the U.S. by 17 seconds and Brownlee’s training partner and 4-time Aquathlon World champion Richard Varga of Slovakia by 33 seconds.

Once in the 1 kilometer swim, Zaferes and Varga, who has led the swim at every World Triathlon Series event this year, caught and passed Brownlee and Grajales. While surrendering 35 seconds to Varga’s race-best 11:55 swim split, Brownlee hung on the Slovakian’s feet and exited the water and started the run in a dead heat with his training partner.

After a race-best 7:53 split for the second run, Brownlee finished in 28:58 with a 5 seconds margin on Varga, who closed with a 2nd-best 8:03 run. Zaferes, who ran a 6th-best 8:13 second run split, took the bronze 15 seconds behind Varga.

“Definitely my first ever run, swim, run,” Brownlee told ITU media. “I really enjoyed it, it was hard, really hard. It’s so hot, the running was tough. The other guys went off really hard and I thought ‘I better go with them.’ It was weird, it’s not like I was tired, but I felt like I was in oxygen debt the first kilometer after the swim.”

Women

In the women’s race, Shorets dominated the run-swim-run wire-to-wire for her first world title.

Despite serving a 10-seconds penalty for missing the athlete briefing, Shorets led the first run in an 8:26 split that gave her a 4 seconds lead on fellow Russian Anastasia Abrosimova and Severine Bouchez of Canada, 12 seconds on Hong Loi of Macau, 15 seconds on Valentine Zapatrina of Russia and 18 seconds on Anastasia Gorbunova of Russia.

Gorbunova surged with a race-best 13:28 swim that put her 1 second behind race-leader Shorets. But once they started the run, Shorets closed the door on her rivals with a race-best 8:58 second run that brought her to the line in 33:12 with a 57 seconds margin of victory over Abrosimova and 1:04 on 3rd-place Zapatrina – making it a Russian sweep of the elite women’s podium.

“I’m very happy to be World Champion, and very surprised,” Shorets told ITU media. “It was very strange that I was leading after swimming. I’m really happy – this is good for my mind.”

ITU Aquathlon World Championships
Cozumel, Mexico
September 14, 2016
R 2.5 k / S 1k / R 2.5k

Results

Elite men

1. Alistair Brownlee (GBR) 28:58
2. Richard Varga (SVK) 29:03
3. Tommy Zaferes (USA) 29:18
4. Dmitry Polyanskiy (RUS) 29:26
5. Steffen Justus (GER) 29:41

Elite Women

1. Mariya Shorets (RUS) 33:12
2. Anastasia Abrosimova (RUS) 34:09
3. Valentina Zapatrina (RUS) 34:16
4. Hoi Long (MAC) 34:20
5. Anastasia Gorbunova (RUS) 34:39