New Zealander Bevan Docherty showed stunning form at
Tongyeong in Korea yesterday to outlast some of the world's
best triathletes and win the the first race of the ITU world
championship series.
Chasing Docherty home in fourth place was fellow New Zealand
Kris Gemmell.
Both Kiwis had work to do heading into the final 10km run
leg, conceding almost 30 seconds to Russians Dmitry Polyansky
and Alexander Brukhankov and well-performed Frenchman
Frederic Belubeare. Alongside the Kiwis out of the final
transition was Olympic silver medalist Simon Whitfield
(Canada) and the dangerous Australian pair of Courtney
Atkinson and Brad Kahlefeldt.
Docherty and Gemmell slowly but surely moved to the front of
the race, hauling in the leaders with one 2.5km lap to go, in
the process leaving nearly all of their much vaunted rivals
behind.
Kahlefeldt could not be shaken and Polyansky stuck grimly to
his task in keeping out a fast finishing Gemmell and the
chasing pack. Docherty showed his tenacity and conditioning
in out-sprinting Kahlefeldt in one of the closest finishes in
the history of the sport.
"Freddy (Belubeare) looked to be the big danger but we picked
him up comfortably," an elated Docherty said afterwards. "To
be honest I fellt average on the run, and only started
felling better in the second half and for the final kilometre
I felt awesome.
"I waited and employed the same tactics as Beijing and then
sprinted well. Brad is one of the hardest in the sport to out
run so this feels totally awesome.
"For the final 50 metres it was all on. Five metres out I
edged in front but he came back, it was anyone's game and it
took five minutes until they could decide using the photo
finish. I think I slid on ground 10 metres after the line."
For Gemmell it was an amazing turnaround to race so strongly
at the head of the field, just a month after falling heavily
at the New Plymouth Continental Cup race, losing nine days of
swim training and suffering heavy bruising and grazing.
In the women's race the day before, Whangarei's Sam Warriner
was the best of the New Zealanders in eighth place while
Nicky Samuels was 19th, Debbie Tanner 23rd and Andrea Hewitt
39th.
Both Warriner and Hewitt fell during the bike, with Hewitt in
particular taking a heavy blow. Both are suffering from heavy
bruising and grazing but have avoided serious injury.
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