ABU DHABI // Gwen Jorgensen’s first love is corporate taxation. She was working happily for Ernst & Young, a university career of running and swimming behind her, when a former boss at the firm asked her to try her hand at the triathlon.
That was in March 2010, about a year after graduating with a degree in accounting. Soon after she completed her first triathlon.
Five years on, she is the top female triathlete in the world and the reigning world champion reinforced that status with a remarkable win in the International Triathlon Union’s World Triathlon Series (WTS) opener in Abu Dhabi on Saturday.
Jorgensen began badly on Saturday, coming out of the 750 metres swim 38 seconds behind the leader, Carolina Routier. She then fell further behind the leading pack on the 20-kilometre bike leg so that by the time of the 5km run, she was more than 50 seconds from the lead.
It was then the evidence of her status emerged to put into stark perspective her frighteningly swift rise in the sport.
By the end of the first kilometre she had chopped nearly 40 seconds off the lead and speed guns indicated she was running at 20kph.
By the end of the first lap she had overtaken the Bermudan Flora Duffy and the American’s victory soon became inevitable. Jorgensen won in 58 minutes 58 seconds, which was 16 seconds ahead of compatriot Katie Zaferes.
Duffy was third, a further eight seconds behind.
Jorgensen surprised even herself with the intensity of her run. “I did the swim and I got really beat up,” she said. “I didn’t have a great swim. I must not have gotten out fast enough.
“Then I got on the bike and just tried to focus what we’ve been working on in the run. I kind of surprised myself. I just put my head down and went for it from the beginning.”
Jorgensen finished the run in 0:15.57, nearly a minute faster than most of the field. “It’s very difficult to make up that much time in a 5km run and that is why I was shocked,” she said, unaware at that stage how quickly she had run.
“I knew I was running OK, but I didn’t think I was running that well.”
Last season Jorgensen became the first woman to win four consecutive WTS races and her form here sets her up perfectly for an important year.
Qualifications for the 2016 Olympic Games are the goal for most of the world’s top triathletes this year, the test race in Rio later this year is a crucial one.
Jorgensen is already being talked up as a potential gold medallist there.
“It’s a long season and my goal for the season is to qualify for the Olympics. It’s great to come out here and have a great one to start with,” she said.
“[The competition] is going to get harder and harder. My main goal is to qualify for and for the USA that means we need to do well at the Rio testing.”
Not that she is likely to fail but if she does, there is always the accounting to fall back on.
osamiuddin@thenational.ae
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