GB’s Alex Yee wins Paris Olympic Games Triathlon Test Event in emphatic style

GB’s Alex Yee made light work of the Paris Test Event course today as Team GB once again triumphed over the home side after Beth Potter’s win yesterday.

The Brit finished the Olympic-distance course in a time of 1:41:02, some 14secs ahead of Portugal’s Vasco Vilaca and Frenchman Dorian Coninx, who both crossed the line in a photo-finish after a last-dash sprint.

The result qualifies him for next year’s Paris Olympics and puts him ahead in the points table in the World Triathlon Championship Series, with Hayden Wilde eventually DNFing following a bike crash en route to the race this morning.

What happened in the swim?

Paris put on another belle backdrop for the second test event race of the four-day schedule. Under a dusky pink sky, the world’s best short-course male elites (sadly minus Aussie Matt Hauser who tested positive with Covid yesterday) dove into the Seine for the two-lap, 1.5km swim.

Vincent Luis gave the home crowd something to cheer about as he took control of the race during the second lap, overtaking Hungarian swim maestro Mark Devay to exit the Seine in first.

Yee came out 20secs down, Vilaca 51secs, Kristian Blummenfelt 1:03mins and Wilde 1:06mins.

What happened on the bike?

Luis led out a quintet, which included Devay, Brock Hoel (CAN), Jonas Schomburg (GER) and Tayler Reid (NZL).

But not even halfway through the first lap of seven and that five had swelled to 22, bringing up Yee, Henri Schoeman (RSA), Léo Bergere (FRA), Pierre Le Corre (FRA), Jonny Brownlee (GBR) and Coninx (FRA).

By lap two, five more, inc. Norway’s Caspar Stornes and Tyler Mislawchuk (CAN), had joined them to make a large leading peloton of 27.

Halving the swim deficit came the chase group of 29, now 37secs back, with Wilde, Vilaca and Blummenfelt doing their best to bridge the gap even further over the 40km course.

Halfway into lap three and the deficit was halved again; before the end of the lap it was a group of 55 out of 66 athletes who started.

So slow was the group at one point that athletes could be seen stretching out at the back of the pack.

What happened on the run?

Coninx was first off the bike, but it was Schomburg who was first on the run course for the final 10km.

The first shock of the day came soon after, though, as Wilde was seen falling over, sitting on the ground momentarily before jogging on, but he soon called it a day.

(Speaking to Wilde post-race, he told 220 that he’d had a bike crash en route to the venue this morning, “Yeah I decided to kiss the pavement, I like to keep things spicy.” Asked what happened on the run: “I just decided I wanted a lie down… s**t happens!” said with Wilde’s usual good humour.)

USA’s Morgan Pearson soon overtook at the front, stretching out a few seconds’ lead over Belgium’s Jelle Geens, Vilaca, Bergere, Le Corre, Yee and Blummenfelt.

It was only a matter of yards, though, before Yee found his happy place at the pointy end, looking incredibly relaxed along the Parisian cobbles.

Brownlee meanwhile was down in 43rd, some 40secs down.

Over the next few laps, Yee’s lead just continue to extend, sitting at 23secs on lap three. The race for the remaining podium slots was anyone’s guess at this point, though, with seven men all jostling for position.

By the bell lap, Yee had a 27sec cushion. The race was his and he subsequently took the tape in a time of 1:41:02.

“Really happy with the way the race went,” Yee said post-race. “I was just in awe all the time, with the amazing landmarks. I’ve grown up watching the Tour de France, this cobbles are a holy part of cycling so to get that opportunity is just bonkers.

“Running by yourself there’s a lot of thoughts there in your head. You’ve just got to keep yourself calm and keep pushing as much as you can.”

Behind him, all hell was breaking loose as multiple athletes took part in a sprint to the tape.

In the end, Vilaça and Coninx crossed the line together, with the Portuguese athlete deemed to have just edged the Frenchman, who bagged his spot on the French team for 2024 with his podium finish.

“I’m looking forward to seeing that on the video afterwards, because I tried to position myself at the end of the bridge, so they [the French athletes] couldn’t go with me,” said Vilaça at the line. “I thought I really had them in the last corner, but they kind of squished me, so tried to squish in between them to try and get that silver medal.

“I now really want to get a good four-week block of training in if I’m going to beat Alex [at the Grand Final]. I felt we were running really fast, and the pace was really high, and then Alex comes by us like we’re jogging!”

Swiftly following the top three were two more French athletes, Le Corre in 4th and Bergere in 5th, who agonisingly missed out on automatic qualification.

Blummenfelt finished in 9th, Britain’s Barclay Izzard in 17th, having served a 15sec penalty earlier on for ‘unsportsmanlike behaviour’ in the swim, and Brownlee some five minutes down in 51st, looking notably disappointed after the race.

Luis called it a day after the bike as he’s still recovering from injury and had say pre-race how he wanted “to play my cards wisely.”

Olympic Games Triathlon Paris Test Event men’s top 10 results

1. Alex Yee, GBR, 01:41:02

2. Vasco Vilaca, POR, 1:41:15

3. Dorian Coninx, FRA, 1:41:15

4. Pierre Le Corre, FRA, 1:41:17

5. Leo Bergere, FRA, 1:41:20

6. Morgan Pearson, USA, 1:41:23

7. Tim Hellwig, GER, 1:41:26

8. Miguel Hidalgo, BRA, 1:41:30

9. Kristian Blummenfelt, NOR, 1:41:52

10. Roberto Sanchez Mantecon, ESP, 1:42:05

Top image credit: Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images