Day Two of Paris Olympic triathlon action saw 15 teams compete in the mixed relay, with Georgia Taylor-Brown (GBR), Cassandre Beaugrand (FRA), and Hayden Wilde (NZL) in action for their respective nations.
Contested over four legs of a 300-metre swim, five-kilometre cycle, and 1.8-kilometre run, the Olympic mixed relay would kick off with male athletes, then hand off to their female teammates, back to the men for the penultimate leg before seeing the women take the anchor leg into the finish.
Taylor-Brown figured in Great Britain’s bronze medal performance to give the nation its second Olympic mixed relay medal, while Beaugrand put in a heroic effort to bring Tokyo bronze medallists France up just shy of the podium after a disastrous first leg.
Wilde came out of the water 13th, nine places behind Taylor-Brown’s teammate Alex Yee and just missing the front chase group through the first of two laps. As the groups all came together toward the end of the second lap, disaster struck; the New Zealander hit the asphalt taking Frenchman Pierre le Corre down with him. Wilde would enter the run with a 14-second deficit to Yee, who took to the front and stayed there to build Taylor-Brown a satisfactory buffer as she started her leg.
The Tokyo mixed relay gold medallist held the lead by seven seconds through the swim, cycled solo to extend into a 12-second lead by the bike finish, and kept the run competitive even as Germany’s Lisa Tertsch came up onto her shoulder to pip Great Britain at the changeover.
Sam Dickinson (GBR) worked together at the front with Lasse Lührs (GER) through most of their leg, then put on a surge to give Beth Potter an advantage into the anchor leg.
While Potter led through the swim and most of the bike, Laura Lindemann (GER) and Taylor Knibb (USA) worked to bridge up to her for all three to start the run together. The German proved to have the strongest legs, breaking the tape ahead of a heart-pounding photo finish for silver, the American just edging out the Scot in the end.
Even with the medal race out of reach, the French team worked valiantly as Emma Lombardi and Leo Bergere completed their legs to give Beaugrand a chance to run through the field, finishing fourth. New Zealand ultimately finished 14th.
