Germany’s Annika Koch continued her striking form to secure gold in the inaugural World Triathlon Cup Yeongdo. Slovakia’s Romana Gajdošová and Bermuda’s Erica Hawley produced their career-best performances to earn World Cup silver and bronze respectively in South Korea.

Yeongdo, South Korea, set the scene for the next stage of the 2023 World Triathlon Cup tour. 43 women lined up to race on Saturday morning to chase points, rankings and World Cup medals in hot and humid race conditions.

Zuzana Michalickova of Slovakia led the women through the 750m swim with Hungary’s Márta Kropkó, Austria’s Sara Vilic and Canada’s Sophia Howell hot on her heels. The pace was kept high during the swim and the leaders were able to make a small break on the rest of the field. Race favourite Annika Koch was swimming comfortably in the middle of the front group. With 200 metres to go Michalickova appeared to push the tempo around the final swim buoy to give herself the best advantage and apply pressure to the women as the finished the swim segment of the sprint-distance race. Michalickova, Howell, Desirae Ridenour, Vilic and Koch were among the first women into the first transition of the day and onto the bike course in Yeongdo. Seven women were in charge of setting the early pace.

By the second bike lap the chase group had made up significant time to bring the gap down to 7-seconds on the leaders and it wasn’t long before both groups made contact and were riding together. Bermuda’s Erica Hawley and Austria’s Lisa Perterer were now in touch with the leaders and pushing the pace.

Koch was driving the pace of the lead group of 21 women with a constant rotation of athletes taking turns up front to keep the tempo high. Mexico’s Olympian Cecilia Perez was working hard to stay with the leading women. The leading women were working incredibly hard in the humid conditions to maintain separation from the rest of the field.

Korea’s Gayeon Park was in between the groups riding solo 1-minute down on the leading group and Ecuador’s Elizabeth Bravo was driving a chase pack further back.

As the 20-kilometre bike portion came to an end it was Koch, Kropko and Ridenour who produced smooth and fast transitions to commence the 5-kilometre run course. There was very little separating the leaders, including Mexico’s Sofia Rodriguez Moreno, Romana Gajdošová (SVK) and Hawley, as the women hit the pavement to race for medals and crucial positions.

Koch, who secured her career-best performance in Sunderland last weekend to earn the World Triathlon Championship Series bronze medal, continued to extend her lead and showcase her brilliant form. The challenging conditions or travel days didn’t appear to be taking a toll on the German who dominated the women’s run course.

The battle for medals was firing behind the German and was open for the taking between Hawley, Rodriguez Moreno, Gajdošová, Japan’s Niina Kishimoto, Michalickova, Australia’s Charlotte Derbyshire and Perterer.

Koch let nothing get in the way of her superb race form this morning and continued her podium success as she took the tape to earn World Cup gold in Yeongdo. Slovakia’s Gajdošová stuck with the leading women across all disciplines and was able to surge down the blue carpet to secure a career best silver medal ahead of Bermuda’s Hawley who was awarded bronze and equally a career highlight on her triathlon resume.

“This moment was amazing because the race was pretty tough. from the start as I didn’t feel very strong. I struggled a bit with health and almost didn’t train this week. At the end of the run, I felt much better than expected and just tried to push from the beginning and tried to keep the pace until the end. It was really challenging as the heat was really unbelievable, you really had to take every water station, I just tried to keep the pace until the finish.

Every point and every place is really important. I couldn’t perform better, I am just pretty happy to take maximum points and I am really happy with that. The location is amazing,” said Koch.

“It’s crazy. I still can’t believe it. Even when I saw the finish line. It’s really amazing and I didn’t expect this at all. I just tried to keep my high cadence and knew I had it in me and tried to not slow down and then we will see at the finish line,” said Gajdošová.

“I am so happy, I still can’t really believe it. The first half of the year I was even questioning going for the Olympic dream so to come and podium it really makes me believe in myself. It was a hard and honest race out there,” said Hawley.

Rodriguez Moreno and Kishimoto crossed the line in fourth and fifth place respectively.

Review the women’s results.
Replay the race in full on-demand over on TriathlonLive.tv.