Weekend Round-Up: Team Ireland 3-4 October

This was the fourth year of World Cup racing in Rome, with the event attracting a strong international field.

The Elite Men’s Sprint distance race started at 11:00am with the swim taking place in the Laghetto dell’EUR, followed by a mostly flat but technically demanding five-lap bike course including a short climb, tight corners and two 180-degree turns.

The final 5km run consisted of two laps of a generally flat course, with a short climb at the end of each lap.

James’ second race for Team Ireland, racing in Rome provided another valuable opportunity to earn LA28 qualification points, as the build towards LA28 continues. James had the following to report on his race:

“It was an epic day, proper race another honest course. I started off in the middle so knew I had to get out fast, and was lucky to be near some speedy guys so got dragged to first buoy where I was able to slot into the top five where I just tried to stay.

Then it was long run to transition which honestly put me a little into the red for the first bit of the bike, I was just making sure to hold position into the climb. Our pack didn’t work great, so we ended being caught just before half on the ride.

From there I knew it was going to be a running race. Tried to position myself well but came into transition towards the back of the pack. So my first kilometre was pretty swift to put myself into the game, caught the front on the hill but was dropped again on the descent then. After that got my feet under me and tried to pick as much people off as possible towards the finish.

Learnt a lot – positioning is big part of the game here and would have loved to know how different it might have been if I was towards the front out of T2. 

Next up Beijing, where I will take my learnings :) “