Heavy favorite Javier Gomez finally wins World Championship, longshot Helen Tucker's upset win shocks Worlds
VANCOUVER, Canada -- Both of them young - 24 and 25 -- but their journeys to a world title could not have been more different.
Spain’s Javier Gomez ruled ITU World Cup racing, taking 10 victories in three years, sweeping the last two World Cup season points series, earning 16 straight World Cup podium finishes, taking a commanding win at the Olympic preview at Beijing, and like a gunfighter who spread terror throughout his contemporaries, he earned the label as the fastest runner in the sport at age 25. Before today, Gomez had just one chink in his armor – he finished a badly beaten 9th at the 2006 ITU World Championship and last year he got run down for the gold by home country hero Daniel Unger at the ITU World Championship in Hamburg, Germany.
Helen Tucker of Great Britain is 24 and suffered through a spirit crushing series of injuries and setbacks last year and found herself barely able to finish just one race. This year, things didn’t click until she engaged in a race-long duel at Madrid two weeks ago, finishing second and earning an unexpected Olympic slot. ”After all I’d been through last year, I thought that race in Madrid was enough for me,” she said. “I almost withdrew my entry here.”
THE MEN
When all the tumult and the shouting were over at English Bay in Vancouver late Sunday, the Spaniard earned his crown with a magisterial late run surge that no one could match. When Gomez hit the line in 1:49:48, he left today’s runner-up and 2004 ITU World Champion Bevan Docherty 24 seconds in his wake, earned $31,250, and ejected the monkey on his back that kept chattering that he could not win the big one.
"It’s amazing,” said Gomez. “This has been my dream since I was 15 and saw Simon Whitfield win gold at Sydney on TV. Last year I was upset to not get the title. But this year I am very very happy. This gives me a lot of confidence for the Olympic Games."
MATT REED SAVES U.S. MEN THREE SLOTS WITH CLUTCH PERFORMANCE
While Gomez and Tucker seized the gold, a more desperate drama played out with four nations fighting for the last three places which award nations three individual Olympic men’s slots. Coming through in the clutch like a Mississippi riverboat gambler was the USA’s Matt Reed who held off all challengers with a 5th place finish that trumped all of the USA’s most dangerous challengers from Russia, Australia and even overtook the far-ahead Canadian and Swiss men. Thus Reed put an emphatic exclamation point on his high-stakes mission to protect his own Olympic slot he had earned with a win at Tuscaloosa by winning a finish-line sprint with none other than 2000 Olympic gold medalist and Canadian legend Simon Whitfield.
Just seven and 13 seconds behind Reed were two men he had to beat, Russians Ivan Vasiliev and Dimitry Polyansky, who finished 10th and 11th respectively. Even in defeat of a sort, the Russian men could console themselves because they maintained eighth place in the Olympic slots sweepstakes and reserved three Olympic spots for their athletes. Australia was left out in the cold and nominated superstar Greg Bennett lost his place at the Games. Sadly, young Aussie Brendan Sexton, who was tasked with saving Australia’s third slot, came out of the water like a frozen mackerel, never got going and finished 37th. Bennett, the undefeated 2007 Life Time Fitness series champion, made a charge for the podium, which would have preserved his spot, but faded to 33rd at the end.
“There was no way in the world I was going to give up my Olympic slot,” said Reed, who was as good as his word as his finish made good on his Olympic qualification at Tuscaloosa six weeks ago. After all the anxiety that erupted when the American men stood 9th in the Olympic qualifying sweepstakes just a month ago, Matt Reed rode in like Dudley Do-Right and saved the day. In the final tally, Reed's late points rush advanced the American men to 5th in the standings, vaulting past the Swiss and the the Canadians, holding off the Russians and helped shut the proud Aussie men down to 9th place and just two Olympic slots.
THE WOMEN
Earlier, Tucker and American Sarah Haskins bolted out of the swim and onto the 8-lap bike course like rocket ships on a perilously dangerous mission to leave the gravity of a chase pack that included ITU World Cup dominator Vanessa Fernandes, four-time ITU World Championship medalist Laura Bennett, multiple ITU World Cup winner Samantha Warriner, Australia’s murderer’s row of Erin Densham, Felicity Abram and Emma Moffat (minus an absent Emma Snowsill).
Luckily for Haskins and Tucker, Fernandes’ brilliance was cooled off by 56 degree water and never got her motor running, and Laura Bennett was hampered by gastrointestinal woes. And when mere human stars Densham, Abram, Moffat and Warriner never got their team spirit fully in synch, Tucker and Haskins were poetry in motion as they opened up what proved to be an insurmountable 2-minute 20-second gap by the end of the bike.
While Warriner, Densham, Abrams and Moffat pushed each other on the run, they were only able to reduce the big lead Tucker and Haskins carved out on the bike to a minute at the end.
“It was funny,” said Tucker. “Sarah and I told each other we didn’t have a finishing sprint. So when it came down to it, I had just enough to eke out the win!”
Tucker crossed the line ecstatic in 2:01:37, with Haskins just four seconds behind. “I’ve been happy to take a second at the Vancouver World Cup last year,” said Haskins. “But it can’t compare to a silver medal at Worlds.”
“I still can’t believe I did it,” said Tucker, who joined the ranks of Great Brits Leanda Cave (2002) and Tim Don (2006) who stunned the tri world with upset victories at the International Triathlon Union’s greatest Olympic distance prize.
While that finish should have been enough to sate the thrill seeking crowd, Samantha Warriner and Erin Densham one-upped the top two finishers with a lunging finish line sprint. The decision went to the 37-year-old year-old New Zealander by 11 one-hundredths of a second.
GREAT BRITAIN LEADS THE OVERALL MEDAL HAUL
For this week’s World Championships, Great Britain stood atop the medal haul when all categories were included. Adding glory to Tucker’s triumph, Alistair Brownlee won the Under 23 men’s title earlier in the day, and his younger brother Jonathan took silver medal in the Junior men’s race Thursday, while fellow Brit Christy McWilliams took gold in gold in the junior women’s race on that freezing, rainy and meteorologically dismal opening day to the 20th ITU World Championships.
In addition to Haskins’ happy medal and Reed’s clutch save, Jasmine Oeinck showed last year’s silver medal at Under 23 Worlds was no fluke with a repeat silver behind up-and-coming ITU World Cup elite Daniela Ryf of Switzerland.
20th ITU World Championship
Vancouver, Canada
June 8, 2008
S 1.5k/ B 40k/ R 10k
Results
Elite men
1. Javier Gomez (Esp) 1:49:48
2. Bevan Docherty (Nzl) 1:50:12
3. Reto Hug (Sui) 1:50:17
4. Hendrik DeVilliers (Rsa) 1:50:18
5. Matt Reed (USA) 1:50:27.86
6. Simon Whitfield (Can) 1:50:27.90
7. Igor Sysoev (Rus) 1:50:28
8. Tony Moulan (Fra) 1:50:31
9. Paul Tichelaar (Can) 1:50:32
10. Ivan Vasiliev (Rus) 1:50:34
11. Dimitry Polyansky (Rus) 1:50:40
17. Brent McMahon (Can) 1:50:59
24. Greg Bennett (Aus) 1:51:47
29. Olivier Marceau (Sui) 1:54:24
37. Brendan Sexton (Aus) 1:53:02
50. Timothy O’Donnell (USA) 1:54:42
52. Doug Friman (USA) 1:55:04
61. Kyle Jones (Can) 1:56:52
DNF Brian Fleischmann (USA)
Elite women
1. Helen Tucker (Gbr) 2:01:37
2. Sarah Haskins (USA) 2:01:41
3. Samantha Warriner (Nzl) 2:02:32.85
4. Erin Densham (Aus) 2:02:32.96
5. Emma Moffat (Aus) 2:02:34
6. Felicity Abram (Aus) 2:03:35
7. Sarah Groff (USA) 2:04:08
8. Kate Allen (Aut) 2:04:14
9. Debbie Tanner (Nzl) 2:04:24
10. Vanessa Fernandes (Por) 2:04:34
20. Lisa Norden (Swe) 2:05:22
21. Kathy Tremblay (Can) 2:05:24
22. Laura Bennett (USA) 2:05:30
24. Carolyn Murray (Can) 2:05:46
33.Lauren Groves (Can) 2:06:37
34. Julie Ertel (USA) 2:06:52
38. Kirsten Sweetland (Can) 2:07:49
40. Sara McLarty (USA) 2:09:09
DNF: Tania Haiboeck (Aut), Joelle Franzmann Ger,) Evelyn Williamson (Nzl)
Under 23 Women
1. Daniela Ryf (Sui) 2:09:30
2. Jasmine Oeinck (USA) 2:10:02
3. Matri Rabie (RSA) 2:11:35
4. Olesya Prystako (Ukr) 2:12:51
5. Barbara Riveros Diaz (Chile) 2:13:02
6. Justine Whipple (USA) 2:13:08
Under 23 men
1. Alistair Brownlee (Gbr) 1:54:37
2. Gregor Bucholz (Ger) 1:54:56
3. Martin Van Barneveld (Nzl) 1:54:59
4. Todd Leckie (Gbr) 1:55:12
5. Alexander Brukhankov (Rus) 1:55:36
