Vincent Luis Relieved To Be Back On Top Of Triathlon World

Vincent Luis was in jubilant mood after his first win of 2021 and declared: “It’s good to be back on top.”

The French star climbed onto the top step of the podium at Super League Triathlon Munich and took control of the overall Championship Series leaderboard.

It’s not exactly an unusual feeling for Luis, but it’s something that has evaded him in this injury hit year.

“Taking the lead is good, it’s a lot better than being second,” he joked. “You miss the feeling of the finish tape in your hands. It’s my first win of 2021 and it’s good to be back on top.

“My plan went well and now I have a little buffer because one point goes very quick.

“Next is Jersey which is my favourite race and the Enduro is my favourite format in Super League.

“Now I will recover for one more week and the bodies will be tired after these races. I feel confident and I will go all out in Jersey.”

Key to Luis’s victory was prioritising getting the Short Chute. He admitted to speaking with SLT Scorpions teammate Matt Hauser to try and come up with a plan to deny Hayden Wilde and Alex Yee from getting it.

In the end he didn’t need to worry as Luis swam through the pack and got across the mount line in T1 just before Tayler Reid to grab it himself.

It was then a case of tagging Jonny Brownlee and using the Short Chute to take the win.

“I feel good. It was an intense race and I had to dig deep straight away on the swim to get the Short Chute and Jonny was racing really well and my only motivation was to stay with him and take the Short Chute and enjoy it as Hayden did last week,” said Luis.

“I was confident as soon as I had the Short Chute but the race was full on and then I wasn’t 100 per ent confident on the last run. Jonny was strong and attacked me a few times and I’m glad I made the effort on the first swim as I am not sure I would have outsprinted him. I still had a kick but you prefer to make sure you win the race.

“My plan coming here was to put people between Hayden and me in the overall to make sure I have a gap and that worked perfectly well. It’s a good day.”

Luis admitted he didn’t push the ITT on the bike that started the Equalizer and was confident he could still grab the Short Chute.

“It’s a tight course, difficult, really narrow and I didn’t want to take too much risk,” he reflected.

“If you compare the watts it’s similar and I wanted to stay within ten seconds for the swim. It was hard as I had to swim over a lot of people and then sprint to the mount line and that was a hard transition up the stairs.”