Triathlon Celebrates Another Successful Year

19 November 2008, 6:15PM
Femme

Triathlon New Zealand today celebrated another great year of elite performances with the Annual Athlete Luncheon in Auckland, to acknowledge and toast the milestone results of 2008.

Any athlete having achieved a World Championship podium, Ironman victory, Olympic representation or ITU World Cup podium was recognized at the luncheon in front of 80 of the sport’s key stakeholders.

Those to qualify and be acknowledged this year were:

Bevan Docherty, Kris Gemmell, Shane Reed, Martin van Barneveld, Sam Warriner, Debbie Tanner, Andrea Hewitt, Cameron Brown, Jo Lawn, Terenzo Bozzone, and Bryan Rhodes.

Each spoke about their seasons, the highs and lows and all thanked their supporters, sponsors and family and friends.

Also acknowledged on the day was retiring triathlete Evelyn Williamson. Williamson’s goodbye to a 20 year competitive career was an emotional one as she recounted the many years of hard work, highlights and support received over that time.



(Retiring coach John Hellemans flanked by his high profile athletes Andrea Hewitt and Kris Gemmell)

Long respected and decorated coach John Hellemans has also called it a day, at least in coaching. It is expected he will stay on with Tri NZ in a high performance advisory role. He too was recognized and received a recognition award from Tri NZ and high praise from athlete Kris Gemmell and recent Tri NZ High Performance Manager Stephen Farrell who spoke on behalf of the sport and national body.

“Triathlon New Zealand is in good hands with strong leadership and is on the verge of good things,” said Hellemans.

“For that reason I am keen to stay involved in the sport and appreciate the opportunity to work on redeveloping and shaping the high performance programme.”

CEO Dave Beeche addressed the gathering and talked of a sense of deja vu.

“I looked at my notes from last year and just about copied them word for word today, albeit with the addition of a medal and 3 top ten performances in Beijing.

“Once again our athletes have led the world in individual performances with a number of world titles here today and again we lead the way in terms of depth. Whether it is Ironman or the Olympics, our athletes are achieving great results and in doing so setting great examples to the kids starting to take an interest in our sport.” 
 
The athletes speeches were notable for the determination to continue on to London in 2012 with Bevan Docherty, Kris Gemmell and Sam Warriner all indicating that this is a strong priority for them all, with all three admitting to ‘unfinished business’ for a variety of reasons.

(Retiring athlete Evelyn Williamson speaks to the function )

 

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