Olympic Distance, Men

There was no clear favorite. Without double champion Alistair Brownlee and Ironman superstar Jan Frodeno, the short-distance field was searching for a new hero. During the COVID pandemic only a very limited number of international races could be held, so the actual condition of the competitors was basically uncertain. The 2020 World Champion, with three World Cup wins in autumn 2020, was the Frenchman Vincent Luis, while the Norwegian Kristian Blummenfelt and Jonathan Brownlee won the two World Cups in May 2021. The winner of the World Series event in Leeds one month before the games was Alex Yee.

For swimming the men had to navigate the warm 30 degree water in Tokyo’s Odaiba Bay, right next to the Rainbow Bridge. Outside of the water, however, the conditions were acceptable with an air temperature of 27 degrees and a humidity of 67 percent.

The race started with an incident. While a camera boat was still filming the participants, the race management gave the start command. Part of the field jumped into the water, but the way for many athletes was blocked by the boat, so they stopped at the pontoon. Several triathletes had already started swimming and had return to the start, which took a considerable amount of time. The race got underway safely around 10 minutes later.

Vincent Luis was the first out of the water after the first swim lap of 950 metres heading back to the second lap of 550 metres. The pack, however, was only seconds behind. He was able to hold this position and finished swimming in front of Dmitry Polyansky and Jonas Schomburg.

The bike part started with a small lead group of five athletes, which eventually grew larger in the first lap with a few athletes sprinting inside to form a pack of nine, but a second chase group was only a few seconds behind. In the fourth lap these groups finally merged. Stefan Zachaus tried to escape, but was caught up quickly. Now a third group also joined, so that almost the entire field rode together for the rest of the race. In the middle of the bike course Schomburg had massive bad luck. Luis Knabl tore off the rear derailleur right in front of him and Schomburg lost contact with the main group. The pace slowed down a bit, so that Swiss Andrea Salvisberg was able to pull away, opening a lead of 21 seconds at the end of lap five. This gap was reduced to only 14 seconds out of the second transition zone after the bike.

Salvisberg was soon caught on the run and an elimination race began. Alex Yee headed the field now for most of the run and gradually accelerated, but could not get rid of all his rivals. With 1 km to go in the last run lap, Kristian Blummenfelt dropped Yee and initiated the decisive attack. Yee could not match the Norwegian’s speed, who began celebrating his greatest career success 200 metres before the line and was overwhelmed by his win at the finish before he was carted away from the finish area in a wheelchair. Behind the two top finishers New Zealand’s Hayden Wilde crossed the line in a comfortable third position. For Norway it was the first triathlon medal in Olympic history and the first summer gold since 2012.