Athletes start the swimming leg of the men’s triathlon at the ITU World Olympic Qualification event on Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, yesterday. (Reuters)

AFP/Rio de Janeiro

Elite triathletes from around the world raced from Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach yesterday in a dress rehearsal for next year’s Olympic Games.
The event was vital for athletes looking to secure spots on their national Olympic teams but just as much a test of the city’s ability to stage the world’s biggest sporting event in exactly 12 months.
Overlooked by Rio’s iconic Sugarloaf Mountain, competitors raced across the sand of Copacabana and dived into low surf for the swimming stage of the gruelling event, before switching to bicycles, then finally a foot race.
American star Gwen Jorgensen won the women’s contest, as expected, beating a field of 56, with Britons Non Stanford and Vix Holland taking silver and bronze.
In the men’s competition, reigning Olympic champion Alistair Brownlee of Britain was a favourite, alongside Spain’s Javier Gomez, silver medallist in the 2012 London games.
The race was just as much a check on Rio’s readiness for next year’s Olympics.
Staged on Rio’s most popular beach during a weekend, the triathlon put athletes and the public in close contact, while the cycling and running courses required the shutting down of normally busy streets.
Hundreds of people crowded the barriers to watch the competitors, while many hundreds more took up their habitual Sunday posts on the curving sand beach, some taking dips in the ocean just a stone’s throw from the lane reserved for the athletes.
With the broad seafront avenue mostly sealed off for racing, the throng of coconut water vendors, skateboarders, bodybuilders, bikini-clad sunbathers and dog walkers who typically rule this stretch of Rio were forced to jostle for space.
But in a good sign for Rio’s 2016 sporting party, no one was grumbling.
“It’s an event taking place in the streets, so it’s bound to be a bit messy, especially in Rio de Janeiro,” said Raer Souza, a trim looking 78-year-old with a white moustache. “But it’s good for Rio,” he said.
The only thing he’d change? The thumping music.
“I just wish they put on more samba,” he said.