Olympic champion Cassandre Beaugrand bounced back in brilliant style from a bike crash last time out at WTCS Yokohama to take a clearcut win at the first-ever edition of WTCS Alghero.
Sardinia has been a WTCS staple in recent years but at Cagliari rather than the stunning port city of Alghero and the new venue promised a challenging bike course with breakaway potential – and so it proved.
French superstar Beaugrand managed to bridge up to the leading five early on the bike and that proved a race-defining move for it meant she started the run with an advantage of well over two minutes on all the other favourites and that was always going to be way too much, despite a sickness bug apparently sweeping through the French camp.
She eased clear of her fellow breakaway athletes early on the first of four 2.5km run laps and was in splendid isolation from that point onwards.
There were significant first WTCS podiums for two of her fellow breakaway athletes – local favourite Bianca Seregni (ITA) and Olivia Mathias (GBR), who were 39 seconds and 1:10 respectively behind. Maya Kingma (NED) was fourth, with Leonie Periault (FRA) the first home in fifth of those not in the bike breakaway.
Swim – All change at the start
There was a late change as due to some early-morning maintenance work the beach start was scrapped in favour of a sea start in between two buoys. The water temperature was 21.8 degrees Celsius, with the air temperature 28 degrees and rising.
Seregni and Mathias were out first at the Aussie exit but on the second lap they were joined by Summer Rappaport (USA), Emma Jeffcoat (AUS), Kingma and Therese Feuersinger (AUT).
Beaugrand meanwhile broke away from the chasing group and set about trying to close the gap – and she had it down to 13 seconds when they exited the water for the second and last time.
A superb transition saw her close that further and actually overtake Kingma but that pair then had a bit more work to do in order to bridge up to what was now a leading five at the start of the bike.
Lisa Tertsch (GER), winner of the WTCS opener in Abu Dhabi, led the chasers in eighth place at +27 seconds, with Yokohama one-two Jeanne Lehair (LUX) and Beth Potter (GBR) at +31s and +37s respectively.
Bike – One-way traffic
Early on the first of nine 4.5km bike laps Beaugrand and Kingma had 10 seconds to make up on the leading five.
But they combined brilliantly and we soon had a top seven on what was an up-and-down course which would lend itself perfectly to the breakaway group.
At the end of lap two it was 48 seconds back to the chasers but on lap three Rappaport dropped off the front group while back in the chase pack 2016 Olympic champion Gwen Jorgensen’s race was effectively ended by a flat front tyre.
She would rejoin the fray but would be lapped on the final lap and unable to showcase her brilliant run speed.
Meanwhile back to the front of the race and the gap continued to balloon out – it was 1:18 after lap five and by the time the leading six reached T2 they had 2:20 and more over the rest.
Run – All about Beaugrand
The ease with which Beaugrand glided clear at the start of the run belied two things – firstly, she’d had only two weeks to recover from that nasty bike crash in Japan and secondly was the fact that sickness had been sweeping through the French camp, meaning she hadn’t even been certain she would start the race.
That added about the only real jeopardy on the run as to whether she would take the win because she had soon pulled clear of local favourite Seregni.
The gap had risen to 26 seconds by the end of the third loop, with Mathias in third at +58s but a potential first WTCS podium for the Brit was under some threat as Kingma was running well in fourth.
However Mathias stayed strong – as did all of the front three – to close things out in style.
Results
WTCS Alghero – Saturday May 31 2025
1500m / 40km / 10km
Elite Women
- 1. Cassandre Beaugrand (FRA) – 1:55:55 [18:38 / 1:01:36 / 34:33]
- 2. Bianca Seregni (ITA) – 1:56:33 [18:27 / 1:01:39 / 35:06]
- 3. Olivia Mathias (GBR) – 1:57:04 [18:27 / 1:01:43 / 35:44]
- 4. Maya Kingma (NED) – 1:57:46 [18:29 / 1:01:31 / 36:20]
- 5. Leonie Periault (FRA) – 1:57:59 [19:03 / 1:03:35 / 34:10]
WTCS 2025 rankings after Alghero (race three)
- 1. Lisa Tertsch (GER) – 2282.82pts
- 2. Jeanne Lehair (LUX) – 2096.20pts
- 3. Rosa Maria Tapia Vidal (MEX) – 1567.84pts
- 4. Beth Potter (GBR) – 1504.42pts
- 5. Leonie Periault (FRA) – 1429.94pts
