David Cantero Del Campo (ESP) turned last weekend’s disappointment into gold on Sunday, winning the inaugural World Triathlon Cup Iquique after a fierce 5km shoot-out on the Pacific Chilean coast. Porter Middaugh (USA) and Antonio Serrat Seoane (ESP) crossed the line together three seconds later, with the American awarded silver and Serrat bronze, as just 17 seconds covered the entire top ten.
For Cantero, the result carried extra weight. The top seed came to Chile with an outstanding record in South America, including podiums at both Chilean World Cups last year, only to fail to finish in San Pedro de la Paz seven days ago. The shorter, faster sprint format gave him the chance to put that right, and he took it.
The swim belonged to the San Pedro front-runners. Benedikt Bettin (GER) and Márton Kropkó (HUN) shared the fastest split over the single 750m lap, with Baptiste Passemard (FRA) and San Pedro winner Morgan Pearson (USA), together with home hope Diego Moya (CHI) close behind. Cantero and Serrat exited together only 24 seconds behind the leaders, but several big names had more work to do: Sullivan Middaugh (USA) and his younger brother Porter were around 45 seconds down on the leaders.
The flat, non-technical 20km bike course made that small gap that the five leaders had at the start of the bike impossible to hold. The group of then 24 riders rode hard over the four laps, with Sullivan Middaugh, Itamar Eshed (ISR) and Porter Middaugh among the quickest. And together they rode for almost the entire bike course until, with one lap to go, Marton Kropko and Samuel Künz (AUT) decided to try to break away, managing to make it to the second transition with almost 20 seconds of a gap.
But the gap proved to be not enough for the extremely fast runners in the chase group, and neither could hold it on the run, with Kropkó finishing 24th and Künz 45th.
With so many men off the bike together, transitions mattered. Sullivan Middaugh posted the fastest T2 (0:21), and Cantero and Porter Middaugh were close behind in 22 seconds, putting all three at the sharp end as the two-lap 5km run began.
What followed was a race of fine margins. Cantero and Sullivan Middaugh went hard from the start, with Serrat Seoane, Morgan Pearson (USA) and Porter Middaugh closely behind. And before the end of the first lap, the five were together lokking at each other trying to save some energy for the final sprint.
And shoulder to shoulder they run until the last turn before transition, where Cantero added an extra gear and no one could follow himtaking the tape three seconds clear. Porter Middaugh backed up his strong ride with a 14:17 run to edge Serrat for silver on the same time, giving Spain two places on the podium and completing a superb day for the United States. Sullivan Middaugh finished fourth, two seconds off the podium, and Pearson fifth.
Louis Vitiello (FRA), silver medallist in San Pedro, took sixth, with Liam Donnelly (CAN) seventh, David Lang (LUX) eighth, Daniel Van Aardt (GBR) ninth and Christopher Deegan (AUS) tenth. Reese Vannerson (USA) finished 11th, while Bettin placed 13th and Pelayo González Turrez (ESP), fourth last weekend, 14th.
Moya was the top Chilean in 16th, with Mateo Mendoza Burgos (CHI) 26th and 19-year-old Sebastian Zurob (CHI) 34th on his World Cup debut.
