Maria Tome “flew in” on her bike and took 11th place in the triathlon at the Olympic Games.

Maria Tome impressed on Wednesday in her Olympic debut, finishing 11th in the women’s triathlon at Paris 2024, making an extraordinary recovery after topping the cycling segment.

In the fifth fastest time ever for a Portuguese Olympic triathlon, the 23-year-old completed the race in 01:57.13, 02.18 minutes behind winner Cassandra Beaugrand of France, with Melanie Santos 45th in 08.53.

After leaving the swim in 39th place, Maria Thome reclaimed 28 places, 19 of which were in cycling, a segment in which she was the best of all competitors, including Cassandra Beaugrand, who won gold in 01:54.55 hours, to the delight of thousands of French people who rose early to watch the race.

The podium was completed by Switzerland’s Julie Derron (silver medal) and Britain’s Beth Potter (bronze), with an advantage of six and 15 seconds respectively.

The news came at 04:00 in Paris, via a photo posted by World Triathlon on X with the caption “Let’s swim.” The Paris2024 organization and the international federation knew that the “window” to avoid the triathlon becoming a duathlon was running out today, as it had been raining all night and more rain was forecast for Thursday, which would “automatically” worsen the water quality and make the reserve day, originally scheduled for August 2, impossible.

The results of the latest tests, carried out on Tuesday afternoon and received by the organisations at 03:20 local time (it is unclear what took them so long), showed that the water in the Seine was finally up to standard and that both the women’s and men’s events could go ahead.

So it is known that when the triathletes entered the water and after a night of heavy rain, the bacteriological levels were certainly different, but none of this bothered the 56 athletes who set off from the Alexandre III bridge at an altitude of 1,500 meters on the Paris river. Swimming has been banned since 1923.

Maria Tome emerged from the water in 39th place, 02.12 minutes behind Flora Duffy, while Melanie Santos was 41st, 02.15, when she started the 40km bike. The 29-year-old triathlete received a 15-second penalty in the swim segment after missing a buoy and was unlucky enough to drop her helmet when transitioning to the bike.

Although there was no more rain, the wet road claimed the lives of several “victims”, falls followed one another with greater or lesser force, but the Portuguese women remained unharmed.

Julie Derron had switched from cycling to running at the front, and Tomé, the protagonist of a great recovery, was then 20th, 01.08 minutes behind Switzerland, being the fastest of all triathletes in this sector, which he achieved with a time of 57.34.

Santos, who was 22nd at Tokyo 2020, was on the decline at 04.35, only 43rd.

A Games newcomer, the 23-year-old triathlete moved up in the running section and even found extra strength to beat Germany’s Nina Eim in the sprint, deciding her 11th place finish with a photo finish, the same method used to determine Santos’ 45th place finish.

Maria Tomé even achieved the fifth-best result in the history of Portuguese triathlon at the Olympic Games, after Vanessa Fernandes’ silver in Beijing 2008 (she was eighth four years earlier), João Pereira’s fifth place in Rio 2016 and João Silva’s ninth place in London 2012.