After the Stade de France on Sunday night, where the men’s 100m final was decided by five-thousandths-of-a-second, you suspected we might have to wait a long time to see a finish quite so close. Well, less than 12 hours later, here was a rival. Okay, so on the clock, the margin was not quite so minuscule.
But for drama, for accessibility of the fractions to the naked eye, it was right up there. In a thrilling three-way finish, at the end of a mixed triathlon relay that had engrossed across four frantic legs of swim, bike and run, Germany took gold, officially one second ahead of the US and Great Britain, who were awarded the same time. So tough were they to split that initially the British quartet of Alex Yee, Georgia Taylor-Brown, Sam Dickinson and Beth Potter seemed to have been awarded silver, later downgraded to bronze behind the States in a photo-finish.
Yee, the individual gold medalist here, and Taylor-Brown were part of the British quartet that won the inaugural edition of this race in Tokyo by clear daylight three years ago, but here the event came into its own. Training on two previous days had been cancelled, again due to concerns over water quality in the Seine. Organisers confirmed on Sunday night, however, that the race would go ahead, answering teams’ call for clarity after verdicts on the individual races last week had been delayed until only hours before the planned off.
On a glorious morning, thousands of expectant French supporters lined the Champs-Elysees and the banks of the Seine for what the venue announcer described in terms hard to dispute as “quite possibly the most beautiful race that has ever taken place”. The host nation had, like Britain, taken a gold and a bronze from the individual races, but had outlined their depth with fourth in both races as well. Ahead of the relay, the talk had been that that pair might be happy for this to come down to a final leg sprint, the onus on the rest to try to crack the contest open early.
That all changed on the final turn of the opening 7km bike leg, though, when France’s Pierre le Corre tangled with individual silver-medalist Hayden Wilde, of New Zealand, and both men hit the ground. Yee only narrowly avoided the crash himself. With a glance back over his shoulder, he noted the identity of the victims and set off.
On the run, he turned the screw, seeing an opportunity to break clear. Handing over to Taylor-Brown, Britain’s lead over second-placed Germany was only three seconds. Crucially, though, the gap back to France, now last, was 40.
Taylor-Brown was out of the water and out in front alone on the bike, producing a monstrous solo ride to keep a regrouped chase pack - minus the doomed French - at bay. On the final lap of the 1.8km run she paid for it, as Lisa Tertsch of Germany reeled the leader in.
Tertsch, a cross-country international at Under-23 level, had seen her individual medal chance go up in smoke in a bike crash last week, and took out those frustrations here with a devastating kick to hand over ahead at halfway. Dickinson and Lasse Luehrs were, though, to all intents and purposes on terms and wisely worked together on the bike to keep the lead group at two. Dickinson had performed a selfless job on two wheels in the individual event, leading Yee through the bike leg and delivering him onto his favoured run for a shot at gold.
At that stage, he stepped off the course - “the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” he said later - taking a DNF next to his name on the sport’s biggest stage for the sake of the greater good. Whatever energy had been conserved was left on the blue transition carpet here, to hand Potter a five-second lead going into the anchor. The Briton had almost doubled that by the end of the swim, but was not out of the woods, with America’s Taylor Knibb - 19th among the specialists in the cycling time trial on the opening weekend - on the charge and catching the Germans in behind.
Knibb’s epic stint made it a three-way scrap heading into transition for the final time, the American, Potter and Germany’s Laura Lindemann heading out onto the closing run as a three. Potter, who ran the 10,000m on the track at Rio 2016, was the favourite at that point, but the outsider, off the pace, with 400m to go. She closed hard, the medalists entering the final straight three abreast.
Potter hit the line at the same moment as Knibb, a fraction ahead a photo would later rule, and then both hit the deck. Lindemann, though, got there before them both..
