Jeanne Lehair wins rainy and hectic WTCS Yokohama, nasty crash for Cassandre Beaugrand

While most eyes were on Cassandre Beaugrand and many people were already assuming an almost certain victory, the conditions during the WTCS Yokohama caused the Olympic Champion to crash hard and drop out. After a rainy and especially hectic race, in the end it was Luxembourg’s Jeanne Lehair who won the race, taking her first WTCS-victory ever.

During the race it was not dry for a single moment and that led to a dangerously slippery bike course. Beaugrand became the biggest victim of those conditions, smashing hard against the asphalt in the sixth out of ten bike laps and dropping out of the race.

Earlier in the race, after the 1,500-meter swim to be exact, a compact leading group formed with Therese Feuersinger, Jeanne Lehair and Lisa Tertsch. On the bike, however, that leading group became much larger and grew into a peloton of 32 ladies, with basically all the favorites together. Only France’s Leonie Periault was missing from this group.

Just past the halfway point of the bike leg, it was Beaugrand who slipped on the white lines of a crosswalk and slammed to the asphalt. After the crash, she remained on the ground for quite a while and at the time of writing it is unclear how the top French athlete is doing. After Beaugrands crash, the pace seemed to be off at least a little bit in the leading group, but when the remaining 31 women came into T2, they still had a 2:35 minute lead over the chasers.

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Beaugrand slammed to the asphalt at WTCS Yokohama (Picture: World Triathlon)

During the run, Lehair immediately managed to take the initiative and halfway through, the Luxembourg athlete already had a 10-second gap on Germany’s Lisa Tertsch, also German Annika Koch and Russia’s Diana Isakova. Again shortly behind them followed Beth Potter and Gwen Jorgensen.

Lehair kept the pace high, but Potter began to advance in the closing stages. Only Tertsch was able to keep up with her, but neither lady could close the gap on Lehair, who thus took her first WTCS win in a time of 1:51:34. Four seconds later, Potter finished second and Tertsch took the bronze six seconds after the winner – and thus two seconds behind Potter.