NZ triathlete Andrea Hewitt finishes second overall in WTS series

On the women’s side, expect France’s Audrey Merle to feature as she took bronze in the women’s Junior World Championship last year and gained valuable global experience at the elite level as a member of the gold medal winning Mixed Relay World Championship team earlier this year. Jorgensen finished atop the ITU world rankings with Hewitt second, True third, Holland fifth and American Olympic hopeful Katie Zaferes fifth.

Jorgensen was disappointed with her swim, coming in 11th place.

“I wasn’t in a great position, I just tried to remain focused”, Jorgensen said afterwards.

Stanford and Holland stayed with her for the first 7.5 of 10km before Jorgensen made her move and pulled away by so much that she was able to rest her sunglasses on top of her head, look behind her and grab an American flag before crossing the finish line.

Stanford and fellow Great Britain athlete Vicky Holland can secure their place at Rio 2016 if they finishes in the top three at the ITU World Triathlon Grand Final in Chicago. “I was really hurting today and had no idea what was going to happen”. Gwen Jorgensen (USA) returns to retain her reign as the world’s fastest female triathlete, and will do so in front of practically a home crowd as she hails from nearby Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

A third woman, favored to be Katie Zaferes, will be determined in 2016. “The second before I thought, you’ve got to do something now”, Jorgensen said. The final race of the four-day Grand Final, Spaniards Javier Gomez Noya and Mario Mola will line up as the men to beat, followed by France’s Vincent Luis and South Africa’s Richard Murray on Saturday in Chicago. Full standings here.

Bailie’s momentum was building nicely leading into the test event in Rio last month when the world’s best had their first chance to earn automatic Olympic qualification.

In 31 World Triathlon Series starts she has notched 15 wins – a record for the series. Triathlon debuted at the Sydney 2000 Games. True and Jorgensen have already qualified for next summer’s Rio Olympics, but the race still wasn’t quite what True had hoped for.

Jorgensen competed in the 2012 Olympics in London, finishing 38th after having a flat tire during the bike ride.

Holland said: “Getting on the podium was a win”. “She’s the target. She’ll know that”. Biles’ includes only all-around competitions.