Home win for SA in Triathlon WC
Brad Morgan
15 May 2007Hendrik de Villiers became the first ever South African winner of a World Cup triathlon event when he claimed line honours in the Richards Bay Triathlon World Cup at the weekend, while Canada's Kirsten Sweetland recorded her first win in the women's event.
Speaking after his win, De Villiers said when he pulled on the green and gold before his race he told himself that it was going to be his day, and one for his country.
The victory earned him 50 World Cup rankings points and $12 500 in prize money.
It was anything but an easy win for the South African champion who reeled in the leaders throughout the course of the race after a poor start.
Lost his goggles
De Villiers lost his goggles at the start of the first leg, the ocean swim, and then struggled to find a decent line because of the large 73-man field. However, after rounding the first buoy, he found his rhythm and managed to exit the water not too
far in arrears of the leaders.
Australia's Clayton Fettell set the pace in the 1 500 metres swim, contested over two laps, and emerged as the leader out of the water.
Ahead of the athletes lay the 40 kilometre cycle ride, made up of eight laps. Fettell was quickly joined by seven other competitors who tried to open up a gap on the chasing back.
Leading pack
By lap four, the group had grown to 10 as France's Samuel Pierreclaud and Russia's Alexander Brukhanov, the bronze medal winner at the World Junior Championships, joined in the front-running.
Brukhanov kept pushing the pace and moved to the head of the field, with Israel's Dan Alterman holding on to second.
Meanwhile, De Villiers had moved onto the shoulder of Volody Polikarpenko, who ended 2006 ranked second in the world. Together, they started to eat into the lead established by the leaders.
By the end of the 40 kilometres, Brukhanov was in sight. De Villiers said he could see the leader as he reached the pier for the transition to the 10 kilometre running leg, and it was then that he decided a podium finish was a possibility.
Furious pace
He and Polikarpenko, setting a furious pace, ate up the ground, reeling in the front runners, until, with one kilometre to go they moved to the head of the field.
Once he had done that, said De Villiers, his focus changed from a podium finish to taking victory.
He pushed hard, opening up a small gap on Polikarpenko to race across the finish line in one hour, 52 minutes and 53 seconds, four seconds ahead of the Ukrainian, to the delight of the Richards Bay crowd. Russia's Brukhankov took third a further four seconds back.
Erhard Wolfhaardt was the next best South African finisher, two minutes and five seconds behind De Villiers, in twenty-eighth place.
The top 27 all finished within two minutes of the winner.
Women's
winner
World junior champion Kirsten Sweetland claimed the women's title in a time of 2:03.32. Like De Villiers, it was her first World Cup win.
The Canadian took the honours ahead of Switzerland's Magali Di Marco Messmer, the winner of Olympic bronze in Sydney, with third place going to Germany's Christiane Pilz.
Looking back over her race, Sweetland said the swim brought her a lot of satisfaction because she had been putting a lot of effort into it in training. The cycling, she explained, suited her because each of the eight laps brought with it a stiff climb, with climbing being one of her strong suits.
Thereafter, on the run, Sweetland, who was a star athlete over 3 000 metres while at school, was able to pull away.
South African champion Kate Roberts was the top local finisher, ending ninth in two hours, five minutes and 43 seconds. Seventeen-year-old schoolgirl Vicky van der Merwe came home in twenty-eighth, four places ahead of Corinne Berg.
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