Victoria de Gómez Noya at the World Series in Cape Town

An impressive Javier Gómez Noya won the afternoon of this April 27 in the second round of the ITU Triathlon World Series, held in Cape Town. Together with him and after a sensational comeback, Mario Mola has achieved fourth place in the South African city.

 

 

As at the beginning of the month in the opening round of the 2014 edition in Auckland, Javier Gómez Noya He has once again demonstrated his exceptional mastery of the competition, and in a new exhibition during the race on foot after an intense duel with the British Jonathan Brownlee, the Galician has returned to climb to the top of the podium.

 

The swim was formed by two laps of 750 m, in which the Slovak Richard Varga again stood out, marking the best part of the stage. Next to him, a splendid Cesc Godoy was only one second behind the Slovak. Godoy gave a huge display during the two initial segments, pulling in many moments of the head group during the cycle. After Varga and Godoy, Brownlee and Gómez Noya were just a few seconds away from the water.

 

The cycling sector did not offer great variations, with a group of 14 triathletes that included the Spanish Gómez Noya and Godoy, and that included great rivals such as Jonathan Brownlee, Henri Schoeman or Aaron Royle, remaining in the lead during the eight laps (40 km) of the route. From behind two groups merged in the first laps to form a large chasing block of more than 25 triathletes, which included the Spanish Mario Mola, Vicente Hernández and Ricardo Hernández. All three would work hard with the rest of the squad to try to close the gap.

 

However, the rhythm of the head group was very high, and in each round they increased their advantage, until they reached the second transition and had a margin of more than 1: 19; which meant that the podium would be shared among the triathletes of the front platoon. At the exit of the T2, the fight between Gómez Noya and Brownlee began. In these early stages of the race on foot both changed pace, leaving in its wake the rest of contenders. Once again the story was repeated, and as in Auckland and London, both disputed the victory in a hard struggle; Struggling stride to stride in an exciting duel.

 

Gómez Noya proved to be the strongest, and entering the third of the four laps of the final sector of 10 km race the Galician launched an attack before which the Briton was unable to respond. From that moment on, the Spaniard did not lower his guard and was unstoppably heading for his second consecutive victory of the season in the World Series.

 

Meanwhile, the Yorkshire triathlete tried to maintain his advantage over the Russian Dmitry Polyanskiy, who was riding alone in third place at a very good pace. Finally, the silver medal would be for Jonathan Brownlee, who crossed the finishing line to 19 seconds of the winner. The Russian was satisfied with the bronze medal, entering 43 seconds of Gómez Noya.

 

In turn, a sensational Mario Mola was climbing positions in a spectacular race on foot, which would take him to an exceptional fourth place. The Spaniard managed to cut a disadvantage at the start of this stretch of 1 minute and 19 seconds, staying only nine seconds from the podium. Sample of his splendid race on foot, was his partial of 29: 58 -the best record of the afternoon- in this last segment of the competition.

 

Behind, Vicente Hernández arrived at 20ª position, Cesc Godoy lost positions after a great effort during the cycling sector and entered 21º place, and Ricardo Hernández was classified in 43ª position. The three did a good job, with great wear and tear in the second segment of the competition. Unfortunately, the other Spaniard at the helm, Uxío Abuín, had to leave after the swim.

 

For its part, and after this new success, Javier Gómez Noya continues to lead the ranking of the World Series with 1600 points. Briton Jonathan Brownlee is in second place with an 1480 score, Australian Aaron Royle is third with 1227 points and Mario Mola is fourth with a total of 1097 points.

 

An exciting day that has gone through a spectacular stage that debuted in the ITU circuit, and that also has left us very good performances of the Spanish triathletes. The next round of the World Series will take place in Yokohama between the 17 and 18 in May.