Third-place Jess Learmonth led the British charge in the first World Series race of the season as Non Stanford, Vicky Holland and Georgie Taylor-Brown also finished in the top 10.<\/p>\n
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USA\u2019s Katie Zafares, who finished runner-up to Holland in last year\u2019s World Series, sealed a commanding victory in Abu Dhabi by breaking clear on the 5km run.<\/p>\n
With her compatriot Taylor Spivey in second, it was left for Learmonth to out-sprint Under-23 world champion Taylor Knibb to stop a US podium sweep.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought I\u2019d shove \u2018em out, \u201cLearmonth joked. \u201cShe [Knibb] kept pushing and I thought it was going to come to a sprint finish. I thought: \u2018She\u2019s a young buck, she\u2019s not 30-odd, she\u2019ll get me, so I\u2019ll have to push on to getaway.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were working really hard [on the bike]. I\u2019m glad that finally we had a breakaway that worked. I\u2019ve got to be honest, I hadn\u2019t aimed for this race. I\u2019ve had a bit of a bad lead-up and I said I\u2019m just going to get round. It\u2019s a big year for selection and the girls are so strong so I\u2019m just going to take it a race at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Learmonth had led out of the water in the 750m swim, a front group that was eventually whittled down to six opened an insurmountable 65sec gaps on the main pack over the 20km bike course.<\/p>\n
Even for the calibre of France\u2019s Cassandra Beaugrand and Stanford, it was always going to be too much of a gap and the ever-consistent Zafares, who had stood 17 times on the World Series podium, but only once on the top step, ran clear to win by 26sec in 55min 31sec.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The American also clocked the fastest 5km run leg with a time of 16:09. It was 2sec faster than Stanford, who having left Leeds to join Canadian Joel Filliol\u2019s training group will be encouraged by her start to the World Series. India Lee was the final British competitor in 26th.<\/p>\n
There is now a six-week break before the World Series resumes in Bermuda for the second of eight events.<\/p>\n
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You can follow all the action live, plus re-live past races, highlights and interviews at triathlonlive.tv<\/p>\n<\/section>\n