Dylan McCullough (NZL) held his nerve in a shoulder-to-shoulder sprint down the blue carpet to go one better than his runner-up finish in Rio World Cup last week, edging out Germany's Justus Töpper by nine seconds with Australia's Toby Powers completing the podium in third, as the Elite Men wrapped up a memorable World Cup debut for Asunción.

For the second week running, Dylan McCullough was first out of the water, holding the lead through the opening lap of the swim and all the way into transition, where he touched with an 11-second cushion over Kevin Tarek Viñuela González (ESP). A leading pack of around 16 athletes, including Martin Demuth (CZE), Pietro Giovannini (ITA), Shachar Sagiv (ISR), Andree Buc (CHI), Justus Töpper (GER) and Braxton Legg (USA), came through with a small gap already forming on riders such as Mathis Beaulieu (CAN) and Jawad Abdelmoula (MAR). One of the pre-race favourites, Reese Vannerson (USA), lost nearly a minute in the water and was left to chase all day.

The bike splits the race

The selection came on the bike. After the opening lap, the lead group was down to just five: McCullough, Sagiv, Demuth, Töpper and Toby Powers (AUS). Once again showing the breakaway instincts he had displayed in Rio, McCullough organised the quintet and drove the pace lap after lap, stretching the advantage over the 18-strong chase group to more than two minutes 51 seconds by the finish of the bike leg. By the time the five reached the second transition, with the chasers over two minutes back, they knew the medals would be decided among themselves.

McCullough took control of the run from the first stride, and Demuth was the first to lose contact. With 8km to go, Sagiv also dropped back, leaving the podium to be settled between McCullough, Töpper and Powers. Powers held on through three of the four laps, but on the last McCullough and Töpper went shoulder to shoulder with the blue carpet in sight, and the Kiwi found an extra gear in the closing 300m to take the win and never look back.

'It's amazing to win today after my silver in Rio. I had a really good swim today, and we worked really well together on the bike,' said McCullough. 'Massive kudos to Justus, Toby, Sachar and Martin, we pushed some serious power on the bike today. Everyone was super committed, and I'm proud of how everyone worked to make this breakaway successful. It's really cool to see that the game is changing, it's not so much a runner's race anymore. Credit to the boys today, I can't thank them enough.' On a tough finish, he added: 'My legs were pretty cooked on the run, they were cramping badly, but in the last 5km the cramp disappeared and I managed to hold on for the win.'

'I've had an amazing three weeks of racing, I knew today I was feeling really good,' said Töpper. 'I've been training really well with my training partner, Rico Bogen, and I knew Olympic distance could be really good for me. This is only my second-ever Olympic distance race, but I made it count.'

'This is an amazing feeling, I've wanted this for so long,' said Powers. 'I've only raced seven World Cups, but today just went perfect. It was my best swim ever, and as soon as I saw how far up we were, I just thought we needed to make it happen.'

First podiums for Töpper and PowersTöpper's runner-up finish and Powers' bronze were the first World Cup podiums of their careers.

Further back, Mathis Beaulieu produced the standout performance of the day on the run, clocking the fastest split of the field to move into fourth, almost two minutes quicker than McCullough's winning run.

Sagiv held on for fifth, ahead of Keller Norland (USA, 6th), Andree Buc (CHI, 7th), Kuba Gajda (POL, 8th), Sullivan Middaugh (USA, 9th) and James Corbett (TRI, 10th).