A helmet tangled in a plait, an Olympic champion’s gold chain snapping at the worst possible moment, multiple crashes… and one athlete leaving rather more of himself around the course than he might have intended…
Supertri’s return to Jersey delivered considerably more than just two $100,000 winners at the weekend.
France’s Cassandre Beaugrand and Australia’s Matt Hauser ultimately emerged victorious from the women’s and men’s races respectively, but Express has taken a look back at some of the stranger moments from a chaotic afternoon at the Marina…
(Le)Hair-raising “sabotage”?
Jeanne Lehair was right in contention for the women’s title when her hair got stuck in her helmet.
Unable to remove it properly in the final transition, the Luxembourg star set off on the run still carrying the helmet, but things then got worse…
Lehair eventually freed it and attempted to throw it into her transition box, only for it to bounce back out, forcing her to turn around and costing her even more time.
Her explanation afterwards? “I guess it’s sabotage because it’s Taylor who did my hair. She did the braid,” she joked.
Apparently this is not even Lehair’s first wardrobe-related Supertri mishap, as she explained: “Two years ago… it was the necklace, but now the hair.”
Asked whether she would be willing to make a big sacrifice to avoid such a slip-up in future, she was firm: “I will not shave my hair. No, never.”
She eventually accepted third behind Beaugrand and Britain’s Georgia Taylor-Brown.
Crash, get up, crash again
Britain’s Eve Whittaker had an even more painful afternoon.
The young athlete crashed twice on the bike, describing how her back wheel first skidded from beneath her shortly after overtaking Beaugrand.
She immediately got back on, but then came crash number two.
“I think again my back wheel skidded – just face planting,” she recalled.
With her equipment bent, Whittaker somehow carried on, made it through another run and reached the second bike leg before her race eventually ended.
She still described racing alongside the Olympic and world champions as “such a cool experience”.
There was more British-on-British drama later when Jess Fullagar collided with the rear of teammate Taylor-Brown on the final bike leg as the pair tried to put Beaugrand under pressure.
Beaugrand, meanwhile, largely avoided the chaos, broke clear on the final run and beat Taylor-Brown by 19 seconds, with Lehair another eight seconds behind.
It continued an extraordinary unbeaten season for the Olympic champion, who pocketed the $100,000 winner’s cheque.
“I could stop my season right now as I’ve done everything I wanted,” she said.
Local favourite gets her cheer
There was no fairytale victory for Jersey wildcard Siena Stephens, but arguably one of the biggest receptions of the day.
The 19-year-old completed the opening swim-bike-run before falling foul of Supertri’s elimination rule, with friends holding signs and the Marina crowd cheering her around the course.
“I’m proud of what I did,” she said afterwards. “The ladies out here are amazing, so that’s only where I’d love to get to at some point.”
From gold chain to… golden necklace?
Then came the men – and the showdown between Hauser, Hayden Wilde and Olympic champion Alex Yee that had been heavily anticipated.
For a while, it was delivering, and then Yee disappeared from the timing screens as his gold bike chain had snapped.
Commentators described it as something they had never seen before in Supertri as Yee slowly rolled to the side of the course, his challenge over through no fault of his own.
There was at least a very thin silver – or perhaps gold – lining. Yee was offered the broken chain afterwards and accepted it, prompting the commentary team to observe that he had “lost a chain, but… gained the golden necklace”.
Yee was understandably “gutted”.
“It was just a little bit of bad luck,” he said. “These things happen, and I’ll be back to race in the future. It was an amazing event, amazing atmosphere… I really felt quite good going into it.”
Leaving it all on the course… literally
Yee wasn’t the only man having a difficult afternoon.
American Carter Stuhlmacher suffered stomach problems during the race, with commentators first reporting that he may have “left a bit of his lunch on the pontoon”.
He then vomited again beside his bike during transition – but remarkably carried on.
The commentary team rather graphically noted that he was “leaving DNA all over the course”, before he was eventually eliminated under the 90-second rule.
Hauser gets his swagger back
With Yee gone, Hauser eventually broke clear on the final run to take the men’s title and $100,000 prize, seven seconds ahead of New Zealand’s Wilde.
Dutchman Mitch Kolkman completed the podium after reigning champion Csongor Lehmann picked up a late penalty.
For Kolkman, the mishap proved rather useful. Explaining a Dutch saying that roughly translates as “one man’s death is another man’s bread”, he admitted Lehmann’s mistake had been his “bread” as he celebrated third.
Swapping champagne… for a shoey?
The afternoon ended in suitably understated fashion… For both men’s and women’s podium stars, Assistant Minister with responsibility for sport, Senator Serena Kersten, awarded each with a non-alcoholic athletes’ beer, rather than the traditional champagne.
On the podium, Wilde skipped the spraying and started drinking his can instead, while Australian champion Hauser celebrated by pouring his drink into one of his already-raced-in shoes and performing a “shoey”.
As the commentators pointed out, that meant he was getting “a little bit of his own sweat back too”. Perhaps $100,000 makes it taste better…
