British triathlete Georgia Taylor-Brown held on to win the penultimate race of the women’s T100 season in Dubai and move top of the overall standings.
The 2020 Olympic silver medallist claimed her second victory of the season in the fourth event of the campaign, with December’s grand final in Qatar remaining.
Taylor-Brown will take a six-point advantage over Switzerland’s Julie Derron into that final event.
The 32-year-old Mancunian, who is a former world champion in the shorter Olympic distance and finished third in this season’s World Triathlon Series, is aiming for her first T100 world title.
Taylor-Brown won her first T100 race – which includes a 2km swim, 80km bike ride and 18km run – in Spain in May and was third in Vancouver, Canada in August.
She hit the front in Dubai just under 4km into the run and opened a 30-second advantage before holding off New Zealand’s Nicole van der Kaay to win by just 10 seconds, finishing in three hours 35 minutes and 19 seconds.
Derron, who took the lead in the overall standings with victory in Vancouver, was third in Dubai, finishing two minutes seven seconds behind Taylor-Brown.
Britain’s Kate Waugh, the 2025 champion, was ninth, just ahead of team-mate Lizzie Rayner.
Waugh missed the opening two events of the season with a calf injury and is eighth overall heading into next month’s Grand Final in Doha.