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Kicking off the week-long event of Multisport racing, the 2017 Penticton ITU Duathlon World Championships crowned the first set of world titles as Australia’s Felicity Sheedy-Ryan. While Sheedy-Ryan collected the women’s title and Nicolas seized the title for the men, the wins from both elites brought them back to the top of the Duathlon World Champ podium as Sheedy-Ryan earned the title in 2012 and Nicolas in 2014.
Joining Sheedy-Ryan on the women’s podium was Spaniard Margarita Garcia Carcia Cañellas who earned the silver and Emma Pallant (GBR) who claimed bronze.
Women’s Recap
A small women’s field lined up to race the Duathlon course first, alongside the U23 field. Starting out with a 10 kilometre run, the leaders of the pack quickly revealed themselves as a small cluster of four women forged. Pallant, the reigning duathlon world champion from 2016 was among the leaders along with Sheedy-Ryan, Sandrina Illes (SUI) and Sara Dossena (ITA).
However, upon entering the first transition, Illes was dropped and the threesome headed out to tackle the 40.5 kilometre bike course as a trio.
Once onto her wheels, Sheedy-Ryan lost no time and quickly broke away from the field and decided to continue as a solo rider. With such a steep hill mixed into the bike laps, she increased her marginal gap one by one.
The chase then saw a change of lineup. Dossena pulled out of the race due to mechanical issues, which left Pallant, who was joined again by Spaniard Garcia.
Once Sheedy-Ryan entered the second transition to start out on the remaining 5 kilometre run leg, her gold was completely untouchable. Her built up lead stuck through to the end and she drove home to claim the win. The Duathlon World Title then tallied a gold for the second time, as she also earned the honour for the first time in 2012.
Sheedy-Ryan said of her victory, “Yeah it feels awesome. I mean obviously coming into this race, that was a goal of mine and I knew there were some strong girls out there today, but when I went over the course yesterday I saw how hard it was and I thought it would probably help and work to my strengths a little bit. I wasn’t relaxed until the last couple hundred metres, because anything can happen but I am absolutely happy to take home a second title.”
It was Garcia who came in to the finish line to take the silver, followed by Pallant who finished off the podium with third.