Legault takes breakthrough 10th at WTCS Hamburg

Emy Legault’s breakthrough year continued this weekend with a 10th place finish at the World Triathlon Championship Series race in Hamburg, Germany. Previously her best finish at a WTCS event had been the 12th place she earned in Montreal at the end of June (pictured above).

“It feels awesome,” Legault said after the race. “I didn’t think it was possible. I was just hoping for another top-20, but a top-10, I just can’t believe it. This season has been really emotional.”

Legault had a rough start, but was able to get herself into the lead group of 15 by the end of the bike and be part of the 5 km road race for the top positions in the race.

“I don’t know what happen when the horn went. A few of us girls didn’t dive in right away, but when I came out of the water I could see a lot of good swimmers in front of me so I thought I was probably in a good spot,” she said. “We worked very hard to get our bike back. It took about five kilometres and then I just tried to conserve my energy, and be as smart as I could. It was really hard to move up. Those girls all know what they are doing because they’ve been at this level for a while so I just tried to feed off them and stay in the best position I could.”

“I wasn’t in the best position going into T2, but when I started running, I just tried to get in the best place that I could,” she continued. “I was running seventh until the final kilometre and the some of the girls started coming back on me. I tried to stay in single digits, but it didn’t quite work out. I didn’t have much left.”

Bermudan Olympic champion Flora Duffy won the women’s race in 58:37 with Great Britain’s Beth Potter taking second in 48:43. Germany’s Lisa Tertsch thrilled the Hamburg crowd with her third-place finish (58:53).

Guelph, Ont.’s Dominika Jamnicky finished 47th in 1:03:15.