Docherty, Bozzone And Samuels Headline Busy Weekend For NZ Triathletes
It was another busy weekend for New Zealand triathletes as they competed across different distances in different parts of the world over the weekend. From the long distance of Roth in Germany, to the Ironman 70.3 in California and the standard distance of the Palamos ITU Wold Cup in Spain and the non-drafting 5150 series in Colorado, everywhere you looked there was a Kiwi in the mix.
Bevan Docherty (Taupo) and Terenzo Bozzone (Auckland) made it two Kiwis on the podium at the latest Ironman 70.3 race at Vineman event in Windsor, California (USA). Docherty continued his great recent form winning in 3:45:10 while Bozzone also raced strongly to come home third in 3:47:21. Jamie Whyte (Auckland) was 17th.
Former Olympic distance star Docherty made his move on the bike, posting the quickest split of the day (2:06:48 for the 90km) to win comfortably from Tim Reed (Australia) by over 2 minutes while Bozzone held off a fast finishing Joe Gambles (USA) for a place on the podium.
Nicky Samuels backed up after her 5th place at the ITU World Triathlon Series race in Kitzbuhel with a 2nd place finish at the latest round of the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC) 5150 Triathlon Series (a non-drafting series) in Colorado. Olympic Silver medallist Lisa Norden (Sweden) won the race and American non-drafting specialist Lauren Goss (USA) was 3rd.
After exiting the water first with a 50 second lead over Norden Samuels quickly extended this to 1:10 at the top of the main hill in the cycle course, before fading in the latter stages of the bike allowing Norden to reel Nicky in coming into transition. Norden extended a gap over the 10km run finishing over 1 minute ahead, however Nicky was happy with her race considering the travel and fatigue still in her body from last weekend.
Challenge Roth saw Dylan McNeice (Christchurch), Cameron Brown (Auckland), Joanna Lawn (Auckland) and Ali Hollington (Hawkes Bay) line up in the elite fields of the fastest long distance race on the planet in front of record crowds and in perfect conditions.
Lawn proved the best of the Kiwis with a strong race for 5th place in 9:09:00 while Hollington too enjoyed a good day coming home in 9th place. McNeice raced well enough to post 8:36:26 but in Roth that saw the gutsy Cantabrian finish over half an hour off the pace set by runaway leader Dirk Bockel (Germany) who won in a ridiculous 7:52:01. McNeice led out of the water but could not match the pace of the mainly European field in front of huge crowds, saying he just ‘lacked spark today’.
News was not good for Brown, after swimming and biking with the leaders, Brown headed out on the run in 5th place with hopes of a podium. Early in the marathon though Brown’s plantar fasciitis ‘gave out’ and he was forced to walk much of the marathon, eventually taking 4:17 for the journey as he proved determined not to withdraw.
Meanwhile New Zealanders found the going tough at the latest ITU World Cup race in Palamos Spain. Bryce McMaster was the best of the Kiwis in the men’s field. In amongst the leaders after the swim and bike, McMaster posted a 34:06 10km run split to fall back through the field and while he finished just 3 minutes behind the winner, the quality of the field was such that he eventually finished in 35th place.
Martin van Barneveld (Wellington) was 41st, Cameron Goldsmid (Wellington) 53rd, Sam Osborne (Rotorua) 54th while Cameron Todd (Taupo) was disqualified after initially finishing in 46th place. The disqualification was in relation to the serving of a penalty but is being queried by Tri NZ, at the moment however Cameron is not showing on the official results.
Rebecca Kingsford (Tirau) was the sole New Zealander in the women’s field but struggled on the run to come home 31st, over 7 minutes off the winning pace.
And to cap off a busy weekend, Oliver Shaw (Rotorua) finished in 4th place in the elite U23 men’s category at the ITU World Cross Tri Championships at The Hague-Kijkduin (Netherlands).