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Great Britain’s Holly Lawrence and Australia’s Aaron Royle stand atop the leaderboard after the individual time trial stages of the Island House Invitational Triathlon, a unique three–day triathlon event in the Bahamas. Read the recap from race organizers below.
The first day was made up of separate time trials in the swim, bike and run. Beginning at 7 a.m. from Clifton Beach in Nassau, swimmers set off at 20-second intervals for the 750m swim. After a short break, competitors completed a 20km cycling time trial along a closed circuit. To finish the morning of racing, athletes ran a 5 km loop on the flat but windy Western Road, thus completing a sprint distance race and earning their total time for the day’s stage.
Women’s Race
In the women’s race, ITU swim standout Carolina Routier of Spain had the best time ahead of American Lauren Brandon and three-time XTERRA world champion and reigning ITU world champion Flora Duffy of Bermuda. Routier’s lead was short-lived as the competition moved onto the cycling time trial and the ITU athlete struggled on the less familiar time-trial bike. Canada’s Heather Wurtele recorded the fastest bike split, edging out Lawrence by just one second. However, Lawrence’s performance on the bike was good enough to give her the overall lead heading into the third and final event of the day, the 5km run. As expected, USA Olympic gold medalist Gwen Jorgensen produced the fastest female run split and was the only woman to dip under the 17-minute mark. That result was enough to catapult Jorgensen into third overall. Duffy posted the second-fastest run split to move into second place, while Lawrence’s run was enough to retain the lead on the day with a cumulative time of 56:54.
“The most challenging part of the time trial format was not knowing where I was relative to the other girls,” shared Lawrence post-race. “I thought I might be going too hard and was going to blow myself up!”
Men’s Race
The men’s race was equally thrilling with significant leaderboard reshuffles after each time trial. Australia’s Aaron Royle posted the fastest swim with a time of 9:36. Reigning ITU world champion,Mario Mola from Spain placed second, 13 seconds behind Royle. American Eric Lagerstrom was third a further four seconds back.
The 20km cycling leg shook up the men’s order substantially as the non-drafting specialists revealed their time trialing prowess. Canada’s Lionel Sanders reversed a substantial deficit after the swim, with the day’s best bike split, ahead of New Zealand’s Terenzo Bozzone and the United States’ Cameron Dye.
The final run leg brought about even more lead changes with South Africa’s Richard Murray posting the fastest run of the day ahead of Mola and U.S. Olympian, Joe Maloy.
When the results were tallied at the end of the day, Royle did enough on the run to take the overall lead in the men’s race, narrowly ahead of Bozzone in second and Murray in third. Less than a minute separates the top 10 men, so there will be plenty of excitement to come in the next two days of racing.
“Today went well across the board. A good swim set up the day and I was able to consolidate on that on the bike and run,” said Royle, pleased with his performance. “It was great to challenge myself against the Uber bikers and see where I’m at in comparison to them.”
The multi-day event also includes a “Fittest CEO Challenge” with 9 CEOs competing over a variation of the professional swim, bike and run distances.
The action continues tomorrow with day two’s Enduro stage, a mass start event made up of a 750m swim, a 5km run, a 40km bike, a 750m and a 5km run for the professional athletes and a shorter version for the CEOs. The three-day event culminates on Sunday with a sprint distance race for the top ten male and female athletes after days 1 and 2 on the private island of Highbourne Cay. The athletes are competing for share in a $500,000 prize purse.
For more details on the event, check out the Island House Invitational Triathlon website.
RANK /NAME /SWIM /BIKE /RUN /TOTAL
1 Holly Lawrence 0:10:23 /0:28:31 /0:18:02 /0:56:55
2 Flora Duffy 0:10:21 /0:29:25 /0:17:44 /0:57:28
3 Gwen Jorgensen 0:10:25 /0:30:28 /0:16:50 /0:57:42
4 Helle Frederiksen 0:10:38 /0:29:16 /0:18:08 /0:58:01
5 Lauren Goss 0:10:49 /0:29:45 /0:17:51 /0:58:24
6 Ellie Salthouse 0:10:58 /0:29:31 /0:18:15 /0:58:42
7 Lisa Norden 0:10:49 /0:29:02 /0:18:53 /0:58:43
8 Rachel Klamer 0:10:24 /0:30:31 /0:18:03 /0:58:57
9 Sarah True 0:10:23 /0:30:43 /0:17:56 /0:59:01
10 Alicia Kaye 0:10:45 /0:29:27 /0:18:51 /0:59:02
11 Katie Zaferes 0:10:34 /0:30:27 /0:18:27 /0:59:27
12 Emma Moffatt 0:10:31 /0:30:47 /0:18:15 /0:59:32
13 Heather Wurtele 0:11:48 /0:28:30 /0:19:19 /0:59:36
14 Lauren Brandon 0:10:17 /0:29:08 /0:20:24 /0:59:48
15 Magali Tisseyre 0:11:39 /0:29:56 /0:18:36 /1:00:10
16 Mirinda Carfrae 0:12:05 /0:30:06 /0:18:30 /1:00:39
17 Leanda Cave 0:11:05 /0:30:10 /0:19:43 /1:00:57
18 Carolina Routier 0:10:07 /0:32:46 /0:18:47 /1:01:38
RANK /NAME /SWIM /BIKE /RUN /TOTAL
1 Aaron Royle 0:09:37 /0:26:58 /0:16:26 /0:52:59
2 Terenzo Bozzone 0:10:08 /0:25:52 /0:17:08 /0:53:06
3 Richard Murray 0:10:10 /0:27:38 /0:15:26 /0:53:12
4 Mario Mola 0:09:49 /0:27:55 /0:15:34 /0:53:17
5 Joe Maloy 0:10:09 /0:27:28 /0:15:44 /0:53:20
6 Cam Dye 0:10:01 /0:26:11 /0:17:19 /0:53:30
7 Lionel Sanders 0:12:10 /0:25:22 /0:16:10 /0:53:41
8 Eric Lagerstrom /0:09:53 /0:27:09 /0:16:41 /0:53:41
9 Brent McMahon 0:10:20 /0:27:11 /0:16:13 /0:53:43
10 Sebastian Kienle /0:10:52 /0:26:15 /0:16:39 /0:53:45
11 Tim Reed 0:10:41 /0:26:57 /0:16:26 /0:54:03
12 Leon Griffin 0:10:35 /0:27:10 /0:16:23 /0:54:07
13 Jorik Van Egdom 0:10:48 /0:27:00 /0:16:24 /0:54:10
14 Tim Don 0:10:33 /0:27:15 /0:16:30 /0:54:17
15 Tim O’Donnell 0:10:34 /0:26:40 /0:17:05 /0:54:18
16 Trevor Wurtele 0:11:39 /0:26:49 /0:16:57 /0:55:24
17 Ben Hoffman 0:10:40 /0:29:37 /0:17:35 /0:57:50
18 Barrett Brandon 0:10:13 /0:29:10 /0:18:42 /0:58:04
19 Andreas Dreitz 0:10:58 /0:42:13 /0:18:43 /1:11:53