It took her less than an hour of racing, but Jeanne Lehair walked away from Toulouse with $50,000 in prize money and the satisfaction of a perfect finish: victory in the final Supertri race of the season and the overall series win.
The Toulouse event followed Supertri’s notoriously brutal format – three back-to-back super sprints of 300 meters swimming, 4 kilometers biking, and 1.2 kilometers running, with no breaks in between. The overall series title was on the line, and it quickly became a head-to-head battle between Jeanne Lehair and France’s Léonie Périault. The two stayed close throughout, turning the finale into a nail-biter.
In the opening stage, Georgia Taylor-Brown wasted no time attacking on the bike, but she was reeled in before T2 by Jessica Fullagar and Lehair. From there, Lehair took control – briefly letting Fullagar set the tone before surging on the first run and forcing Taylor-Brown to lose precious seconds.
The second swim brought most of the favorites back together, but what followed in transition looked more like an age-group scramble than an elite pro race. Taylor-Brown struggled to mount her bike, accidentally hindering Jolien Vermeylen, while Périault also got off to a sluggish start. That chaos opened the door for Lehair, Fullagar, and Vermeylen to break clear as a trio. Behind them, Taylor-Brown, Périault, and Hungary’s Fanni Szalai managed to claw their way back during the bike leg, and all six women hit the second run together.
Lehair once again dictated the pace, this time shedding Vermeylen and Szalai, while Fullagar, Taylor-Brown, and Périault hung on. The dropped duo managed to reconnect during the third swim, though Vermeylen quickly lost ground again after fumbling her swim cap in transition and having to turn back – a costly mistake that effectively ended her podium hopes. Szalai also slipped off the pace, leaving just four contenders in the lead group.
The final run delivered the decisive blow. As she had done twice before, Lehair simply ran away from her rivals. Her dominant closing leg sealed both the Toulouse win and the overall Supertri title.
Lehair crossed the line in 50:41, with Périault three seconds back in second and Fullagar another second behind in third.