Clermont’s Shoemaker Finishes 12th to Lead U.S. Men at WTS Cape Town
McDowell posts career-best top 20 WTS result
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — USA Triathlon National Team member and 2008 Olympian Jarrod Shoemaker was the top U.S. men’s finisher on Sunday at ITU World Triathlon Cape Town, posting a 12th-place finish for his best result of the 2015 season.
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Jarrod Shoemaker was the top U.S. finisher in the men’s race at ITU World Triathlon Cape Town. (Rich Cruse/crusephoto.com) |
Shoemaker (Clermont, Fla.) completed the 750-meter swim, 40-kilometer bike, 10-kilometer run course in 1 hour, 40 minutes, 43 seconds, missing the top 10 by 11 seconds. Of his three World Triathlon Series (WTS) races in 2015, this is his top result, having finished 22nd in Gold Coast and 26th in Abu Dhabi earlier this spring. Kevin McDowell (Geneva, Ill.) also cracked the top 20 in his third career WTS race, finishing 16th in 1:41:04.
Alistair Brownlee, the London 2012 Olympic gold medalist from Great Britain, picked up the win – his 18th career WTS victory. Brownlee finished in 1:39:19, just seconds ahead of second-place finisher Javier Gomez of Spain and Vincent Luis of France, who took third.
Gomez may have been the first athlete out of the water but nearly all of the 65 men competing in Cape Town were within 30 seconds of each other heading into the transition to the bike. Then the field split early out of T1, with the lead pack of 30-plus men holding a gap of more than 30 seconds through the first two laps on the bike. By the third lap, the chase group had organized and closed the gap, forming one massive pack of around 50 men heading out on the run.
A full recap is available from ITU at triathlon.org.
“It was a tough race,” Shoemaker said in a post-race interview with ITU media. “I’m getting back to where I was a couple years ago, so my run felt good. I knew I had to be methodical about it, bide my time and pick up places. I’m happy with it and there’s still room to improve, but it’s definitely a good step forward.”
Shoemaker is now ranked 20th in the Columbia Threadneedle Rankings. Learn more atwts.triathlon.org/
ITU World Triathlon Cape Town
750m swim, 40k bike, 10k run
Elite Men – Complete Results
1. Alistair Brownlee (GBR), 1:39:19
2. Javier Gomez (ESP), 1:39:24
3. Vincent Luis (FRA), 1:39:28
Elite Men – U.S. finishers
12. Jarrod Shoemaker (Clermont, Fla.), 1:40:43
16. Kevin McDowell (Geneva, Ill.), 1:41:04
26. Sean Jefferson (Palisades, Calif.), 1:41:51
28. Greg Billington (Colorado Springs, Colo.), 1:42:01
38. Joe Maloy (Wildwood Crest, N.J.), 1:43:00
50. Chris Braden (Boulder, Colo.), 1:44:57
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