Arthur Serrières Claims First Win and Alizée Paties Makes it 2 for 2
The French speedster is officially back to his winning ways but not without a fight, while Alizée Paties showed that Taiwan was no fluke with a dominant performance to make it two wins in a row.
To say that today’s race was manic would be an understatement. It began with Eric Lagerstrom blitzing the swim in just 19:43, putting almost 30 seconds on the “Shark” Michele Bonacina. Not content with that, the American went on to extend the gap to almost a minute on the first half of the bike, proving to be every inch the wild card we expected him to be in this race. But as so many predicted, it all came down to the run and, like so many times before, this is Serrières’ hunting ground. The Frenchman claimed his first win of the series in 2:25:30, just 22 seconds ahead of Lagerstrom and 54 seconds ahead of Jens Emil Sloth Nielsen in 3rd.
It was a very different picture in the women’s race where Alizée Paties had possibly her most dominant performance yet. Samantha Kinsford was first out the water, but not by far, and for almost half the bike loop the repeat of the Paties vs Billouin bike battle was on until Paties pulled away and the current champion suffered a mechanical that all but put her out of the race. From there Paties did not look back and took the tape nearly 5 minutes ahead of 2nd place Marta Menditto and Samantha Kingsford in 3rd.
