While Russians Alexander Brukhankov and Dmitry Polyansky are in the driver’s seat of ITU World Championship Rankings, the rest of the Russian team isn’t taking a back seat. Ivan Tutukin and Yulian Malyshev finished first and second at Saturday’s Holten ITU World Cup to continue a story book season for the Russian team. Tutkin won with a thrilling sprint to the line over Malyshev and Portugal’s Joao Pereira.

After a quick swim the men were led out of the first transition by Frenchman Aurelien Raphael, who won the Brasschaat Premium European Cup in Belgium two weeks ago. Onto the bike, Australian Brendan Sexton forced a break on the third lap, and was eventually joined by teammate Joshua Amberger on the fifth and final lap.

The Aussies set out onto the run course through downtown Holten with a 23-second advantage on the main group, but they could not hold off the hard-running Russians. In the end it came down to a four-man sprint to the finish, with Tutukin holding off teammate Malyshev by only two seconds to take the win in 1:54:21. Pereira of Portugal finished one second back of Malyshev, with Brice Daubord of France rounding out the sprint in fourth, another three seconds back.