World Triathlon Series: Alex Yee second on debut, Jess Learmonth third

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GB's 'new triathlon superstar' Alex Yee takes second on debut

Britain's Alex Yee finished second in his first World Triathlon Series event, behind world champion Mario Mola.

Yee, 21, earned his first ITU Triathlon World Cup win in Cape Town in February, and is the British 10,000m champion.

He and Mola pulled away early on in the 5km run in Abu Dhabi, but the 29-year-old Spaniard kicked clear with about 600 metres to go.

In the women's race, Briton Jess Learmonth was third, beating American Taylor Knibb in a sprint finish.

Katie Zaferes claimed her second World Series win, 26 seconds ahead of fellow American Taylor Spivey.

Britain ended with four competitors in the top 10, with Non Stanford fifth, world champion Vicky Holland eighth and Georgia Taylor-Brown ninth.

Yee said: "It was amazing to do that - these guys are my idols and I look up to them.

"I'm absolutely over the moon. It went the way I would have wanted."

Yee, who trains with Alistair and Jonny Brownlee in Leeds, represented Britain on the track at the 2018 European Championships in Berlin, finishing 14th.

In his first World Cup triathlon in Cagliari in June 2017, he crashed into a concrete bollard, puncturing a lung and breaking ribs, vertebrae and a shoulder blade - injuries which kept him out for nine months.

The races in Abu Dhabi consisted of a 750m swim, a 20km cycle and a 5km run.

Stanford's 'massive step forward'

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World Triathlon Series: Great Britain's Jess Learmonth third in World Series opener

Stanford was racing for the first time at this level having left her former training base in Leeds in 2018 in a bid to revitalise her career after struggling with injuries since the 2016 Rio Olympics.

The Welsh competitor said: "It's just a massive step forward for me from last year. The race didn't go 100% to plan, but you can't always predict how it is going to go. So I'm happy with the outcome considering how the race panned out.

"It's nice to just be competitive again. Over the last two years, even on the run I haven't been able to be competitive - even though that's supposed to be my strongest of the three events.

"It's been quite demoralising. So it's nice to see I still have a little bit of what I had before and it's hopefully a step in the right direction.

"I did feel like my old self and that was really nice for me personally after a couple of years of feeling a shadow of my former self."

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