(news themed music)
- Right, last night we had the Tokyo ITU World Triathlon
Olympic test event for the elite women.
And it was won by Georgia Taylor-Brown, nope,
Jess Learmonth, no, Flora Duffy, who knows?
It really did go down in this race
but it was all finally decided
by the ITU competition rule 2.11.f.
- Yeah, Mark, now although this race
wasn't officially part of the world triathlon series,
it still was a rather big deal in itself
because not only did it give us a chance
to have look or a sneak preview rather,
of the Olympic Games course for next year,
but it also served, more importantly, as qualification
for a number of the nations who were sending athletes
and each of those countries had their own
selection criterias.
- Yeah, and just two hours before the race started,
the first big news came in.
The 10 km run course can be shortened to 5 km.
And the reason apparently being,
due to a combination of the air temperature,
the humidity and the water temperature.
Apparently the levels are just through the roof
and the officials decided that for athlete health and safety
they were going to shorten the run course.
- Now once into the water it was a familiar sight
of Jess Learmonth at the head of affairs,
with Katie Zaferes not too far behind,
and then a loose group including the likes of Flora Duffy
not so far behind either.
- Yeah but onto the bike there was unfortunately
quite a big crash involving two Americans,
Katie Zaferes and Kirsten Kasper.
And sadly actually putting the world-ranked number one
Katie Zaferes out of the race, unable to continue
and on her way to hospital for multiple stitches
in her mouth.
- Yeah which is never nice to hear at all.
But from that leading group you had the training duo
of Jess Learmonth and Georgia Taylor-Brown who
very quickly established the lead
whilst they started running side-by-side
for that whole 5 km.
And then when they hit the finishing straight,
this is where the problems arose.
Now rather than crucially sprinting for the finish line
and one of them winning,
rather they, essentially held hands
and approached the tape together
in a sort of sense of camaraderie.
Later photo finish analysis did actually give Jess the win
and Georgia second.
- Yeah but this as you said is where the real big problems
and issues started,
because by not actually making an effort to beat one another
and race for that finish,
they fell victim to the ITU Competition rule 2.11.f.
Now this is a fairly wordy rule,
but it finishes with the very important line of,
"athletes who finish in a contrived tie situation,
"where no effort to separate their finish times
"has been made will be DSQ."
- Now this situation isn't actually
anything particularly new.
We do remember back in 2012 at the WTS London event,
the Brownlee brothers were actually warned
that should they not make an effort
to try and race for that finish line
they would be risking the very real possibility
of being disqualified.
- Yeah I guess the idea of all of this
is to keep the spirit of the sport,
the competitiveness, and the excitement.
Now it is pretty black and white but it is the rule,
and you could argue that the girls should have known.
This is a high-level event so jogging across the line
hand-in-hand maybe wasn't the wisest of moves.
- No, perhaps not, but on the other hand
you could argue that by implementing this rule,
the ITU were perhaps being a little heavy-handed
and over the top.
And by judging by many of the comments
that we're seeing already on social media,
it seemed an awful lot of you would think so too.
I mean the girls had put on an incredible performance.
They had raced extremely well all the way up to that point,
and you could say very well deserved
to get that one and two together,
and actually quite sporting that two athletes
from the same country decided to do that.
- And training partners as well.
Now obviously an appeal was put in,
but at the moment the decision seems pretty final.
But if Jess and Georgia have been disqualified,
meaning that Flora Duffy who originally placed third,
is now being marked up to first.
Alice Betto from Italy has placed second,
and Vicky Holland from Great Britain has placed third.
Now interestingly, because Vicky is actually
a previous Olympic medalist,
all she needed to do at this event
was get on the podium and that would secure her spot
for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
So theoretically, she has now done that.
- Yeah and we must point out that this is based on
the specific Great Britain selection policy
that a reigning Olympic medalist such as Vicky
would get to go to Tokyo based on a podium here,
which she's now got.
Any other athletes
like Jess Learmonth or Georgia Taylor-Brown
who weren't reigning Olympic medalists
would have to get a podium here,
which they thought they had done,
and then a further podium in a couple of weeks
at the ITU Grand Final in Lausanne.
And those two results pooled together
would have given them selection for Tokyo as well
but unfortunately now with the result,
this disqualification, that's been stripped away from them.
- Yeah, a real shame for them.
And not forgetting also, actually
that by bumping everyone else up in the results,
it's also going to have some fairly big implications
for other athletes from other nations too.
- Yeah so essentially the reaction to this result
and this event is just going to rumble on and on,
I'm sure for some time,
so please let us know your thoughts
in the comments down there below.
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