Taylor Knibb‘s hopes of winning the T100 Grand Final in Dubai – and the first-ever T100 world title – were briefly threatened by a potential littering penalty.
The American superstar had a perfect record in the T100 this season, thanks to wins in San Francisco, Ibiza and Lake Las Vegas, which meant a top-two placing in Dubai will see her crowned the inaugural women’s champion.
But she had been under pressure like never before as her two main rivals – Ashleigh Gentle and Julie Derron – managed to stay with her on the swim and then kept her within a minute in the first half of the bike, traditionally Knibb’s biggest strength.
Penalty precedent
But in the second half of the 80km bike section – much of it on relatively technical laps – things so nearly took a turn for the worse.
Just beforehand, Swiss athlete Imogen Simmonds had been hit with a littering penalty after she was unable to hold onto a water bottle and it dropped onto the road – see the footage below…
Simmonds was just the third women to get a bike penalty in the T100 this season, after Derron and Flora Duffy.
Close call for Knibb
But Knibb’s potential infraction was arguably far more nuanced.
She appeared to jettison her bottle inside the permitted litter zone but then it seemed to roll fractionally outside of that area.
At that point she led by just over a minute from Derron and Gentle so a 30-second penalty would have been a huge setback given that pair are currently the sport’s two fastest runners.
But after an anxious wait the officials ruled “no penalty”.
That was welcomed by Jack Kelly, the commentator on the live broadcast, who said: “I think that is a brilliant common-sense decision.”
And it was also welcomed by most neutrals as it meant we were set for a fascinating battle on the 18km run as Knibb was able to extend her advantage to 2:46 and 2:48 respectively from Gentle and Derron by the time she reached T2.
That was how it proved too as Gentle ate into her lead, which was reduced to under a minute by the 10km mark.
But that was the cue for Knibb to underline just what a champion she is and you can read all about what happened here.
