World Triathlon Series Final 2015: Results, Times and Reaction from Thursday

The 2015 World Triathlon Series continued Thursday, with runners young and old taking to the land and water to compete in Chicago.

Three events were slated for the morning and afternoon, beginning with the under-23 championships before transitioning into the age-group sprint and world junior championships. Jacob Birtwhistle got things underway with a strong run to take the under-23 event, pulling away down the stretch to avoid repeating his second-place finish from a year ago.

Birtwhistle reflected on his performance, per Chelsea White of Triathlon.org:

"

After the silver medal last year in the juniors I was pretty devastated; I wanted to redeem myself so to speak. I wanted nothing but gold today, so I am really happen to have it and take away the win. It has been a pretty good year for me, there has been some ups and definitely some downs in my first year racing the WTS circuit. I have had some really good races and some not too good ones. I was happy to start off the season really well domestically in Australia and Oceania and now finish off really well in the Worlds.

"

Place	Runner	Time
1.	Jacob Birtwhistle	01:40:51
2.	David Castro Fajardo	01:41:05
3.	Nan Oliveras	01:41:15
4.	Kevin McDowell	01:41:38
5.	Gordon Benson	01:41:56
6.	Russell Pennock	01:42:04
7.	Juan Jose Andrade Figueroa	01:42:09
8.	Alexis Lepage	01:42:18
9.	Christophe De Keyser	01:42:27
10.	Shachar Sagiv	01:42:31

David Castro Fajardo and Nan Oliveras, both of Spain, finished second and third, respectively. The top-finishing American was Kevin McDowell, who finished fourth. Canadian Alexis Lepage was also in contention for most of the race before falling off after the second transition zone.

Overall, Canada and Spain were the only two countries to have multiple participants finish in the top 10.

The day's second race was among the most noteworthy as the age-group competitors took the course. Ranging from their teenage years to nonagenarians, nearly 2,000 participants competed in the race meant specifically for nonelite members of different age groups.

Triathlon Live captured some of the racers in action:

In the eldest and youngest groups, Timothy Winslow took home the title for the 16-19 age group, while Bob McKeague ran the fastest time among the 90-plus crowd:

Beyond the winners, the World Triathlon Series also drew a few notable participants. NASCAR driver Landon Cassill, who drives the No. 40 car, was in the field and tweeted after completing the race as part of the 25-29 age group:

In the evening's final race, Manoel Messias went on a torrid sprint to the finish line to overtake all comers and win the world junior championships. Messias took advantage of a canceled swim caused by a weather delay and used his last-ditch speed to come up with the victory.

The Brazilian finished sixth in last year's junior championships and was the favorite coming into the event. 

Full results for each group can be found at Triathlon.org, though they have not yet been updated from Thursday.