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(Reuters) - Norway's
Kristian Blummenfelt won gold at the opening race of the 2021
World Triathlon Championship series in Yokohama on Saturday
after American Taylor Knibb crossed the line first in the
women's race to secure her place at the Olympic Games.
A strong performance in the 10 kilometre run phase of the
three-discipline event saw Blummenfelt open up a decisive gap
over Belgium's Jelle Geens while Morgan Pearson of the United
States finished third.
The race was the first to be held in the World Triathlon
Championship series this year due to the ongoing COVID-19
pandemic.
Vincent Luis led the athletes out of the 1.5 kilometre swim leg
and onto the cycling phase of the race, with the Frenchman
joined by a large pack of riders during the 40 kilometres on the
bicycle.
Jonas Schomburg, Geens, Blummenfelt and Alex Yee opened up a gap
in the early kilometres of the run leg before Blummenfelt pulled
clear in the final lap to finish 10 seconds clear of Geens in a
time of 1 hour 42 minutes 55 seconds.
In the women's race, Knibb cruised to victory, finishing a
minute-and-a-half ahead of Summer Rappaport in a time of 1 hour
54 minutes 27 seconds to join her compatriot in booking her
berth on the U.S. team at the Olympic Games in Tokyo.
The American was among the first athletes out of the water at
the end of the swim alongside Rappaport, who had secured her
spot at the Games back in August 2019, and Maya Kingma.
Kingma and Knibb pulled more than two minutes clear of the rest
of the field on the bike leg, but the Dutch athlete suffered for
her punishing pace.
That allowed Knibb to open a commanding gap on the run while a
hard-charging Rappaport took second as Kingma crossed in third.
"I wasn't really thinking about Tokyo," said Knibb. "I just
wanted to get to that finish line."
(Reporting by Michael Church in Hong Kong, Editing by XXXX)
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