Triathlon-Denmark's Ditlev wins men's race at first T100 triathlon in Miami

The new T100 triathlon series began on Saturday in Miami with Denmark's Magnus Ditlev winning the inaugural men's race after beating a highly competitive field of the world's top ranked triathletes to pocket $25,000.

The new T100 triathlon series began on Saturday in Miami with Denmark's Magnus Ditlev winning the inaugural men's race after beating a highly competitive field of the world's top ranked triathletes to pocket $25,000. Ditlev, 26, beat the tape with a time of 3:09:08. American Sam Long and Frenchman Mathis Margirier completed the podium.

"Great start of the season I'm super happy to take my first T100 win," said Ditlev. "The entire day I felt like I was below the limit, trying to deal with the heat but towards the end I started pushing more," he added of going past Briton Alistair Brownlee, who led the run but lost pace and finished fifth behind Dutchman Youri Keulen.

The opening race was held on a route inside the Homestead-Miami Speedway, where the 2km swim leg took place in a man-made lake, the 80km bike leg on the road course and 18km run on the racetrack's oval. The $7 million T100 series was jointly launched in January by the Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO) and governing body World Triathlon.

The exciting new concept has races that are much shorter than Ironman's 3.5km swim, 180km bike and 42km run but with two legs longer than the Olympic distances of 1500m, 40km, and 10km. As many as 40 of the world's leading long-distance athletes signed up for a minimum of five races and the Grand Final.

The women's race, featuring Britain's Lucy Charles-Barclay, and Bermuda's Tokyo Olympic champion Flora Duffy, takes place later on Saturday.