Unsurprisingly, it was Team GB’s Learmonth pushing the pace with Netherlands’ Maya Kingma and Australia’s Emma Jeffcoat on her feet.
The first leg was a who’s who of big finishers from the previous Tuesday’s individual race, USA’s Olympic bronze medalist Katie Zaferes taking the near side of the pontoon to get the best view of her rivals to the first buoy. I just had to put my head down, we all knew what we needed to do today and we did it.” The relay is so fast anyway, there’s not much time to take in any information on the course. “When you’re out front, you don’t really know what’s going on behind. “It’s a bit scary leading, it’s easier to have people to chase,” said Taylor-Brown. I wanted to go hard at the start because I had a little gap and it worked.” That was 2km of pain, the longest of my life. “These guys had done great legs and put me in such a position that I just had to do everything to stay there,” added Yee. Slightly different to one million people in Hyde Park, but this was special in its own way,” added Brownlee. It was hard work but so worth it,” said Learmonth afterwards. “To be able to do that and win Olympic gold with this team after everything that has happened is so special. It was a grandstand finish after a strong run from Cassandre Beaugrand and then Vincent Luis had brought France right back into the hunt, but the effort to catch Yee on the bike left him drained for the run, Morgan Pearson eventually passing to earn USA the silver. Jessica Learmonth had set the tone with a brilliant opening leg, Jonathan Brownlee delivered a show for the ages to ensure he leaves his Olympic Games career with a medal of each colour and then it was the two silver medalists, Georgia Taylor-Brown and Yee who saw it through.
The build up had been intense, the anticipation huge and the action did not disappoint as Great Britain’s Alex Yee hung on to the tightest of leads for the final 2km run and bring home the first ever Mixed Team Relay Olympic golds on a beautiful Saturday morning in Tokyo.
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