The mixed relay event brought an end to the two days of competition in the German city, which saw Britain's Jonathan Brownlee win his third individual ITU World Series crown of the season in the men's elite competition while Germany's Anne Haug completed a memorable weekend for the home crowd by claiming the elite women's title.

And Haug, who leads the women's elite world rankings going into the next event in Stockholm, was part of the triumphant German team that also included Anja Knapp, Jan Frodeno and Franz Löschke.

Löschke took over from Haug in second place, who had reduced a big gap during the penultimate stage, and the 24-year-old powered home to the delight of the watching crowds.


"We had an amazing day with lots of ups and downs," he said, following the race which saw the Germans complete the 300 metre swim, 6.6 kilometre bike ride and 1.6km run in a time of 1 hour 17 mins and 55 secs.

"You only get that in a team relay.

"Anja - we call her our lucky girl - got us off to a great start."

An exhausted but delighted Haug said: "I was spot on.

"I didn't think, I just pushed as hard as I could to make the gap as small as possible.

"That's racing - going all in."

The New Zealand team of Andrea Hewitt, Kate McIlroy, Tony Dodds and Ryan Sissons were in contention throughout but could do nothing about the strong German finish and had to settle for second, while the quartet of Sarah Groff, Gwen Jorgensen, Ben Kanute and Cameron Dye produced the best ever finish for a mixed relay triathlon team from the US by securing third place on the podium.

Jorgensen took advantage of Briton Non Stanford's crash on the bike stage to hand over to teammate Dye with the US fractionally in the lead, followed closely by Germany, New Zealand, Australia and France.


However, Dye could not hold off the challenge of Sissons and the Löschke, who closed the gap during the bike stage and eventually overtook the tiring American during the run to the finishing line.

Defending champions Britain, who were going for three World Championships in a row following victories in 2011 and 2012 went into the race as hot favourites but ended up not finishing the event.

After the first two legs, the British team were in the lead courtesy of Jodie Stimpson and Alistair Brownlee but Stanford's unfortunate crash during the bike stage was compounded by the news that star man Alistair incurred a ten-second penalty for an infringement which put the double world champions out of contention.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


Related Stories
July 2013: Younger Brownlee takes victory from brother at World Triathlon Tour Hamburg
July 2013: Exclusive - Decision not to include mixed relay at Rio 2016 is only "temporary setback" says triathlon chief
August 2012: Brownlee the hero as Britain retains mixed relay world title
May 2012: Glasgow 2014 unveil sports programme with triathlon mixed relay set to debut at Commonwealth Games
April 2011: Team events added to ITU World Championship Series as push for Rio 2016 continues