Triathlon ITU World Cup Series was held in New Plymouth – New Zealand
On the 12th of November was the final round of the BG Triathlon ITU World Cup Series was held in New Plymouth – New Zealand. The weather was atrocious, with strong winds and rain for most of the morning, with the rain only clearing for the start of the women’s race. Tameka arrived in NZ on the Friday morning and was still nursing stiches and cuts from her bike fall last Sunday. For those of you who don’t know Tameka – was involved in a bike crash, last Sunday and ended up in emergency requiring stiches and light bandaging. Our big concern here was that her stiches were over her knee joint, which was affecting her flexibility on the bike and run. In the end the decision was made to race and leave the stitches in, and put up with a bit of stiffness. She had a very light week of training due to the fall, and it may have proved beneficial in the end.
Tameka was ranked 43rd out of 47 girls on the start list, and with basically the best 50 girls here bare 3 of them, it was going to be a tough day as there was $350,000 prize pool up for grabs in this race.
The swim conditions were tough and we went in with a plan. Tam had a great swim and exited with the 2nd main pack of about 20 girls. She didn’t have a great transition and missed the group and was back in the 3rd pack of about 12 girls. There were now about 30 girls in front of her and she as leading the chase in the 3rd pack trying to bridge the gap back. The leaders of the race (14 of them) were all in one big bunch working well and by the end of the bike leg had a 2mins lead. Tam’s 3rd bike pack had now caught the 2nd pack and with a group of nearly 20 girls there had plenty of work to do. Tam rode really well here and did a lot of work and was the instigator in getting them up to where they were.
Tameka got off the bike in 16th position (her finish position of last year in this race), and began to try an reel them in. By the 6km point on the run she had moved up to 14th and had made up a minute on the main pack of girls. In the last 4km (loops) after letting her know where she was positioned, she made up another 5 spots to finish 9th in a sprint finish – just ahead of Andrea Hewitt, who is currently ranked in the Top 10 in the world.
She may have finished 9th here, but given the quality of the opposition – her current world ranking, the race conditions and her run of bad luck - This was Tam’s best race to date and shows she can compete with and beat the worlds best. It was a great day for her and myself as a coach. It was a great day.
In other great news – Race 1 of the Melbourne Tri Series was held yesterday at Mordialloc. This is the old ‘Protiviti Series’, albeit from all reports a slightly scaled down version, but still very much needed in terms of another racing outlet besides the current and dominant Gatorade Series. Yesterday from reports we had two people racing, Renee Lane and Dave Uppem and little Jarrad Lindsay King.
Renee (Laney) after some well deserved time off after her top performance at Worlds, came back to racing and albeit with a very limited Female Elite field showed that she has carried some of her good form over and is back on track for a good season. After having a good swim and exiting the water with Vanessa Hentschel, Hentschel (now a VIS MTB Scholarship holder) pulled away on the bike to give herself a 30second lead going into the final run. With basically the 2 girls in the race, it was the 2 of them going toe to toe and to Renee’s credit had a great run to catch Vanessa and sprint away from her in the final stages of the run to take the win and the winners cheque. Great Job. And hopeful this will prove that she may have a future in Triathlon and finally give up that retched game – Netball.
Young Jarrad Lindsay King –aged 12 years old, finished an incredible 1st place in the VSSSA racing, racing against 13, 14, 15 year olds. This is an absolute sensational result from a very very good young athlete. I cant wait to see Jarrad’s results from his next race.
Dave Uppem, one of the new Geelong crew in our team – completed his first race yesterday and went round the course in …………. This was a great effort from Dave as he only resumed training in the last 6 weeks. We look forward to catching up with him at training very shortly.
Well as I sit here in the New Plymouth Airport looking at Mount Taranki Volcano, with plenty of snow I might add - I cant wait to get home and back into training.
Cheers
Jarrod Evans
Head Coach
Tri-alliance, Australia
Geelong Operations |
