Columbia Threadneedle Rankings Report: Cozumel Grand Final

The final race of the season delivered perhaps the most incredible scenes we have seen in the history of the triathlon, with the closing moments of the Men’s Elite race being watched by tens of millions of people, making mainstream headlines news around the world.

Let’s conclude our in-depth look at the 2016 Columbia Threadneedle Rankings and congratulate two new, first-time World Champions.

Women’s Review

It had already been quite a year for Flora Duffy (BER) before the Grand Final, but what a way to finish it as the new ITU Triathlon World Champion. In her seven World Triathlon Series race starts she never finished lower than fourth position, earning four podiums and her first two career WTS victories in the process. Victory in the Grand Final on Sunday was achieved in convincing style, by a margin of one minute and 17 seconds. That was only one second short of the biggest winning margin of the 2016 season, when Gwen Jorgensen (USA) finished ahead of Ashleigh Gentle (AUS) in Yokohama.

Flora’s win also continues an interesting trend; for the last four years the winner of the ITU World Triathlon Grand Final has also finished on top of the Columbia Threadneedle Rankings to become ITU World Champion. That Cozumel triumph means that Flora now joins a list of 16 multiple World Triathlon Series race winners since the series was introduced for the 2009 season. Interestingly, of those athletes who have won at least one race (19), only three – as yet – have not gone on to repeat that at least one more time. Clearly, while winning a WTS race is tough, once achieved it typically provides a springboard to further success.

Two of those ‘first time’ wins happened this season, and both were by U.S. athletes. Katie Zaferes (Hamburg) and Summer Cook (Edmonton) certainly have the capabilities to add further Gold to their C.V.’s in the near future. Katie’s win in Germany followed seven previous podium finishes, while Summer Cook reached the top step of a WTS podium in only her fourth Series start in Canada. Expect more from both in 2017.

Such has been the dominance of Gwen Jorgensen (USA) in recent years it is significant that she ‘only’ won two of her five World Triathlon Series races in 2016, having started the year with 12 consecutive wins dating back to early 2014. That said, five podium finishes from five starts would be a career best season for almost anyone else, such are the incredible standards that she has set. Combine that with an Olympic Gold medal which was her primary objective for the year, and Gwen can be more than content with her season, even if it ended one position shy of a third consecutive ITU World Championship title.

While Gwen may have been disappointed with second place in the Columbia Threadneedle Rankings, Ai Ueda (JPN) was moved to tears to earn the Bronze medal in the World Championships after finishing fifth in Cozumel. Ueda is tied with Andrea Hewitt (NZL) as the most experienced athlete in the women’s field; Cozumel was her 52nd World Triathlon Series event. She showed great determination to recover from two poor early season races in Abu Dhabi and Gold Coast to produce a series of six consecutive top eight results. The key to that success in Cozumel was her fastest run split of the day. Starting the run in 25th position and from the second chase pack, Ueda gained 20 places despite the …

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