Australia’s Matt Hauser ran away from his rivals late on to claim a gritty victory at WTCS Yokohama in challenging conditions in Japan.
It was his third WTCS success after Montreal and Hamburg last year, but his first over the Olympic distance and he had to do it the hard way after it boiled down to a tough run battle.
Hauser had the decisive kick as he sprinted clear of Vasco Vilaca (POR), with Miguel Hidalgo (BRA) rounding out the podium in third.
Swim – Dévay puts hammer down
One notable absentee from the pontoon was T1 Indoor World Cup Lievin winner Henry Graf due to illness and obviously we already knew Olympic one-two Alex Yee and Hayden Wilde were missing.
Water conditions were choppy thanks to strong winds and the race was run in heavy rain throughout.
Things started to get a little strung out on the second of two swim loops and it was Hungary’s Márk Dévay who led the way.
Just behind was Hauser, with Vilaca, Chase McQueen (USA), Max Stapley (GBR), Tayler Reid (NZL) and Dorian Coninx (FRA) all in close contention heading into T1.
Bike – Pearson misses out
The tough conditions saw a red brick section of the original bike course taken out for safety reasons so rather than nine 4.4km laps we instead had 10 loops of 3.7km.
And thankfully, unlike the women’s race when Olympic champion Cassandre Beaugrand crashed out, we didn’t have any major casualties.
What we did have was an initial group of 12 gapping the rest by around 10 seconds, with Paris bronze medallist Léo Bergere (FRA) among those joining the swim leaders.
Their advantage was up to 24 seconds on lap three but the gap did then hold steady before the chasers started to close it and by the end of lap seven the two front groups had joined up.
That meant 23 riders had more than a minute on the rest and most of the big guns were in that front rank, though not defending champion Morgan Pearson (USA) nor uber runner Hugo Milner (GBR).
And by the time we reached T2 the race was effectively over for that pair and anyone else not in the front group thanks to a deficit of two minutes and 40 seconds.
Dévay meanwhile had moved off the front late on and was 17 seconds ahead starting the run.
Run – War of attrition
Dévay’s lead didn’t last long and by the end of the first of four 2.5km run loops we had five men move clear – Hauser, Vilaca, Hidalgo, Bergere and Charles Paquet (CAN).
Most of them took a turn up front as the wind picked up and by the halfway stage five had become four, with Paquet the one to lose touch.
The gap from the leading quartet was going up too – with 18 seconds back to Coninx in fifth.
The attritional nature of the run continued as Bergere was dropped and when the bell came ahead of the final lap it looked like we had our podium – but in what order?
The first part of that question was answered when Hauser and Vilaca dropped Hidalgo with a kilometre to go and then Hauser kicked again and Vilaca had no response, with the Aussie powering away to take the tape.
He was seven seconds to the good on the line, with Vilaca the runner-up and Hidalgo third as Bergere just held off the chasers to take fourth.
Results
WTCS Yokohama – Saturday May 16 2025
1500m / 37.23km / 10km
Elite Men
- 1. Matthew Hauser (AUS) – 1:41:07 [17:48 / 52:28 / 29:42]
- 2. Vasco Vilaca (POR) -1:41:14 [17:57 / 52:22 / 29:49]
- 3. Miguel Hidalgo (BRA) – 1:41:28 [18:07 / 52:06 / 30:04]
- 4. Léo Bergere (FRA) – 1:41:57 [18:01 / 52:14 / 30:33]
- 5. Dorian Coninx (FRA) – 1:42:02 [17:54 / 52:21 / 30:34]
- 6. Tyler Mislawchuk (CAN) – 1:42:04 [18:12 / 52:04 / 30:35]
- 7. Ricardo Batista (POR) – 1:42:11 [18:00 / 52:16 / 30:43]
- 8. Ben Dijkstra (GBR) – 1:42:35 [18:23 / 51:55 / 31:10]
- 9. Csongor Lehmann (HUN) – 1:42:43 [18:01 / 52:17 / 31:18]
- 10. Charles Paquet (CAN) – 1:42:50 [18:03 / 52:16 / 31:22]
WTCS 2025 rankings after Yokohama (race two)
- 1. Matthew Hauser (AUS) – 1693.75
- 2. Vasco Vilaca (POR) – 1566.72
- 3. Miguel Hidalgo (BRA) – 1227.45
- 4. Ricardo Batista (POR) – 1134.29
- 5. Ben Dijkstra (GBR) – 1013.98
- 6. Max Stapley (GBR) – 802.52
- 7. Léo Bergere (FRA) – 791.45
- 8. Hayden Wilde (NZL) – 750.00
- 9. Dorian Coninx (FRA) – 732.09
- 10. Tyler Mislawchuk (CAN) – 677.19
