American superstar Taylor Knibb was again a class apart from her rivals as she registered an utterly dominant victory in Ibiza to make it two wins out of two on the T100 World Tour this season.
Since her success in San Francisco in June she had won a Mixed Team Relay silver medal at the Paris Olympics, where she also competed in the road racing time trial.
And it was on the bike in Ibiza where she blew the race apart – so much so that starting the run she was a lap in front of Ashleigh Gentle, herself a two-time T100 winner in 2024!
Gentle would rally as the run wore on and move up from ninth to fourth but surely the run of the day came from Julie Derron, who took individual silver at the Olympics.
The Swiss athlete put a 60-seconds drafting penalty on the bike behind her as she cut through the field to take second place. She finished 1:43 behind Knibb to put down a real marker on her T100 debut, with Britain’s India Lee rounding out the podium in third just six days after racing the IRONMAN World Championship in Nice.
Here’s how it all panned out…
Swim – Spivey shows the way on debut
The swim seemed to be the only time in the race when Knibb wasn’t in complete control.
Imogen Simmonds had made a strong start to lead it out but in behind something brought Knibb to a virtual standstill.
But she worked hard to get back on track and by the time they exited the water for the second time she was on the back of the front group of five.
That was led by fellow American and namesake Taylor Spivey who was in her first ever middle-distance race, fresh from the Olympics and supertri.
Former Olympic champion Flora Duffy, Sara Perez Sala and Lee were the others in that front group.
They had well over a minute on the rest, with some of the big guns with time to make up including Gentle (+1:22), IMWC runner-up Kat Matthews (+1:32) and Anne Haug (+1:34).
Bike – The ‘Taylor Knibb show’
It didn’t take long for Knibb to start doing Knibb things on the bike.
Well before the first of three laps were complete she had opened up more than a minute on the rest, who were led by Lee.
At the halfway point it was up to 1:44 between the two of them, with even Paula Findlay – who a week ago was finishing in the top 20 in road cycling’s time trial World Championships – also losing ground at +3:40 in third.
To Lee’s credit she kept the gap relatively in check – it was just under two minutes at the end of the second lap.
At that point three of the sport’s fastest runners – Gentle, Haug and Matthews – now had more than six minutes to make up.
Having never had a drafting penalty in T100 racing we now had a second one to follow Alistair Brownlee in the men’s race as Derron was shown a blue card.
That meant she had to serve 60 seconds at the next penalty tent to add to her deficit of 4:27 on Knibb.
On the shorter third and final bike lap, Knibb continued to put the hammer down and by the time she reached T2 she had a 3:15 advantage from Lee, with Simmonds at +5:22 in third, just ahead of Lucy Bryam in fourth, with Findlay and the penalised Derron fifth and sixth respectively.
Run – Derron keeps things interesting
We had the remarkable situation of Gentle, the dominant force in PTO / T100 in the last couple of years, being lapped by Knibb when she started her run!
And she wasn’t the only one, with all but the top eight in the same position.
It meant a weird dynamic for a while but Gentle’s run pace saw her un-lap herself soon after – as did Haug.
Barring any disaster Knibb had the race win in her safe keeping and attention switched to the battle for the other podium places.
And the woman making the big move was Derron, who who was running faster than anyone for the first half of the 18km.
That quickly took her up to third and she then locked her sights on Lee and it took her just three of the seven laps to reel her in and fly past.
At that point Derron was 3:44 behind Knibb and running significantly faster – she couldn’t, could she?
She couldn’t in the end but she underlined just what a threat she will be at the very highest level at this distance as she crossed the line 1:43 back in second – almost exactly four minutes faster than Knibb on the run.
T100 Ibiza Results – Pro Women
Saturday September 28 2024 – 2km/80km/18km
- 1. Taylor Knibb (USA) – 3:30:03 [26:57/1:56:29/1:04:47]
- 2. Julie Derron (SUI) – 3:31:46 [28:09/2:01:25/1:00:48]
- 3. India Lee (GBR) – 3:35:17 [26:54/1:59:59/1:06:50]
- 4. Ashleigh Gentle (AUS) – 3:36:01 [28:11/2:04:33/1:01:39]
- 5. Paula Findlay (CAN) – 3:37:12 [28:28/2:01:05/1:05:53]
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