Dorian Coninx held tough at the end of an intense weekend of super-sprint racing to win a hard-earned gold at the Groupe Copley World Triathlon Championship Montreal on Saturday evening, spearheading a French one-two-three along with his Tokyo 2020 Olympic teammates Vincent Luis and Leo Bergere.

Montreal was showcasing a brand new format over two days and the action lived up to the occasion, Friday’s qualification races the route for 30 men onto Saturday’s first start line and 300m swim. From there, three further races stood between them and gold, the challenge boiling down to the last ten standing from a veritable roll-call of title contenders. As the last 7.2km bike segment saw all ten remaining finalists come together, the 2km run became a straight shootout to the tape and it was the French Olympians who seized the moment, Coninx holding firm off the front without let up and barely looking back for a moment.