Alistair Brownlee takes Luis to sprint finish in Valencia

Alistair Brownlee is back - close - to his best and pulled punches for silver in a sprint finish slugfest with world champion Vincent Luis at the ITU World Cup in Valencia.

The double Olympic champion stayed on the Frenchman's tail right until the blue carpet finish when the world number one kicked clear to win his fourth straight gold at global level.

But it remained a reminder of Brownlee's sheer class and mounting form from sprint distance to Ironman in the week that he was omitted from Team GB's initial selection of four athletes for Tokyo 2020.

"Slowly but surely I've picked my races, enjoyed it more and I was back today racing the best in the world," said the 32-year-old, who upgraded the World Cup bronze he won in Sardinia in October.

"I think if I had another race in a couple of weeks time I'd be really close.

"Before the race, I knew I wasn't too far off and I thought if I could be ten or 15 seconds better than I was in Arzachena, I'd be close.

"Vincent and I have raced so many times over the years, he knew exactly what I'd try to do, which is attack hard and attack early. He just kept holding me off and did really well.

"I've just got to keep it consistent through the next few months and hopefully I can come out next year and be even a little bit better."

Brownlee and Luis left first transition at exactly the same time after the 750m swim, quickly dropping fast South African swimmer Henri Schoeman to form a lead group of three.

Joining them was another Frenchman in Pierre Le Corre and the trio worked well in tandem on the pancake-flat four laps of the 20km bike leg to open up a healthy lead on the large chase pack.

Le Corre came out of transition first, but couldn’t keep up pace and it was clear from early in the 5km run that gold and silver would go to Brownlee and Luis.

Brownlee's kicks were soaked up by the 31-year-old and Luis dropped him in the final 300m to complete a clean sweep of the disrupted World Triathlon season.

"This one was the hardest," said Luis, toasting a 16th major race win of his career.

"Alistair was the strongest at the front, I managed to tactically get in, but he could have won this race and with a few more races under his belt, he would have won for sure."

Earlier, Beth Potter showed exactly why she was crowned European champion in 2019 with a searing run to a maiden race win at World Cup level.

The Scot, a Rio Olympian in the 10,000m who was timed at 15.24 for 5km in August, ripped apart a lead group featuring London 2012 gold medallist Nicola Spirig with a 16.45 run.

Potter, who also ran her way to silver in Arzachena last month, is not Lottery funded having missed out on a place in British Triathlon's Performance Programme this year.

"It's been a funny old year but to end it on two highs, I'm really happy," said Potter.

"I was quite nervous coming in, I had a niggle with my knee since the last race but put that to the back of my head. I'm glad I could go one better."

Sportsbeat 2020