Hi All,
I was going to live blog, but I figured no one will be reading this blog live, so figured that would be a waste of time. So I'll go with a Canadian-heavy race recap. The Canadians have three women who would qualify for Beijing with a Top-8 finish - Kirsten Sweetland, Kathy Tremblay, and St Albert's Carolyn Murray.
Womens race - Americans led the swim, with 4 of them making the first bike pack. Top Canadian was Sweetland, 13 seconds back of the leader out of T1. Tremblay was 48 seconds down, Murray 75 seconds back of the leader. Sweetland managed to miss the first bike pack by a few seconds.
After 10 km, Sweetland was 13th (72 seconds back), Tremblay was in 24th (86 seconds), and Murray was 38th (2m06s back). The two bike leaders were Helen Tucker (GBR) and Sarah Haskins (US), who actually rode away from Vanessa Fernandes, who might not like the cold weather.
After 20 km, the groups starting joining into big packs, with 26 women in the third group about 80 seconds down (including Tremblay and Sweetland). Murray was about another minute back and things were not looking good for her.
Thru 30 km, the two leaders were still ahead by 100 seconds with a huge chase group of 35 women getting ready for the run.
Getting to T2, the ladies in front (Tucker and Haskins) must have been thrashed since they pulled away from their chasers, ending with a 2 minute lead over the giant pack of 34. Everyone was frozen from the chilly conditions. Carolyn Murray was over 4 minutes back...
At 3.3 km on the run, the top 2 women were still together and still leading by 100 seconds, but the fast runners started making their charge. Shockingly, Fernandes wasn't there. Tremblay ended the first lap in 9th place while Sweetland was in 23rd place (32 seconds between them). The girls need to pick it up! Fernandes was 31st! I have never seen her struggle like this.
After 6.6 km, the two leaders still had 80 seconds. The race was theirs for the taking. Tremblay had dropped to 12th place but was only 9 seconds out of 8th place. Sweetland appeared to grab her stomach as the camera passed over her, and had dropped way back into 29th place and was over a minute behind Tremblay. Murray (33rd)had actually almost caught Sweetland despite starting 2 minutes behind her.
Who cares who won? How did the Canadians finish? Well, it appears the selection committee has some tough decisions to make. Despite good efforts, Tremblay couldn't do it down the stretch and finished 21st, while Murray had a great run to finish in 25th place. Groves also had a good run to finish 33rd , while Sweetland only managed to finish 37th and collapsed at the finish line. Decisions, decisions, decisions...
Ok, I'll tell you who won - Helen Tucker and Sarah Haskins ran the 10km side-by-side. With about 200 m to go , Tucker brought Great Britain yet another Worlds title! Unreal. Haskins was second by 3 seconds. The best was the race for third with Sam Warriner out-leaning Erin Denshaw at the absolute last second. Emma Moffatt was 5th. Kate Allen (04 Gold Medal in Athens) had an absolutely great race to finish 8th and probably will get to go back to the Olympics again. Fernandes, who was 30th place after 2 laps, absolutely hammered the last 3 km to finish 10th. 4 Aussies in the top 12 to win best country of the day!
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