The Bahrain Victorious 13 team lived up to their name, taking championship victories in the Middle East and the USA this weekend.
Georgia Taylor-Brown clinched the Super League Triathlon Championship Series title in NEOM, Saudi Arabia on Saturday, topping the day’s Enduro format of three nonstop swim-bike-runs in a row to seal the overall win, a cheque for $50,000 and bonuses to bring her final take-home to $130,000.
After racing the four previous events in London, Munich, Los Angeles and Toulouse, the Olympic gold and silver medallist stood atop the series leaderboard with three wins but level in points with her rival Taylor Spivey. With all to play for, Taylor-Brown stayed on the pointy end throughout the race in the Arabian desert then put on the afterburners in the final run to break the tape first.
She said, “The series win means an awful lot to me. It’s been a long season but we’ve had five incredible series races and I’m so happy to have come out on top. You never know what to expect with Super League as it’s always changing. Sometimes it’s down to pure luck, but I’ve kept my head down and given my all in every race.”
The Bahrain Victorious Scorpions also won the overall teams competition and the top prize of $120,000 to be distributed equally among its members. It was a triumphant comeback for the team, which had led out strong in London and Munich but slipped to third in Los Angeles. A solid effort in Toulouse brought them back up to second and striking distance of the win. The team raked in a total of 102 points in NEOM to top the final leaderboard by a two-point margin: Cassandre Beaugrand recorded the day’s fastest run split and finished eighth after taking advantage of the Short Chute Scorpions teammate Emma Jeffcoat had claimed for the team coming first out of the water, while Tyler Mislawchuk, Kenji Nener and Ryan Fisher finished in fifth, sixth, and 11th respectively in the men’s race.
More triumph lay ahead for Bahrain Victorious 13 as Sunday saw Kristian Blummenfelt crowned the Ironman 70.3 world champion in St. George, Utah. On the same desert hills he staged his Ironman World Championship win back in May, the Olympic champion won his second world title of the year and his fourth in the span of two years.
He said, “I wasn’t sure where we were coming out of the water… I decided to take the first 20 minutes to push the pace. My goal was to try to put pressure early on the bike. We were pushing quite hard all the wa And then you just have to go for it.”
Blummenfelt’s triumph comes on the heels of finishing third in Ironman Hawaii less than a month ago. While he is turning his sights back toward Olympic qualification, winning a title in Kona is very much still a goal. “You can’t get a revenge from racing Kona outside of Kona, so it’s still on my mind. It’s been on my mind every day for three weeks now, so I have to go back and finish business there.”
