Gina Crawford
Challenge Wanaka could have its first pair of New Zealand
winners, with Richard Ussher and Gina Crawford shaping as local
favourites in the long-distance triathlon.
Crawford, nee Ferguson, is the defending women's champion of
Challenge Wanaka with back-to-back titles in 2008 and 2009.
She was in a class of her own last year, on her way to
setting a course record of 9hr 28min 27sec, with daylight
separating her from the rest of the women's field.
However, this year's event is shaping as a far tougher task
for Crawford with a much improved field of elite triathletes.
Australian Rebekah Keat, one of the biggest names in
long-distance triathlon and the second-fastest woman in the
world over the 3.8km swim, 180km cycle, and 42.2km run event,
will present Crawford with her hardest challenge to date in
the Wanaka race.
Richard Ussher
Crawford has recovered from a foot injury and said she
had been putting in "some big, big miles" in preparation for
the Challenge race and her defence of the New Zealand Ironman
title at Taupo in March.
Ussher is New Zealand's fastest Ironman triathlete and will
be aiming to go one better than countryman Keegan Williams,
of Cambridge, who finished in a surprise second last year.
The finish is the best result posted by a New Zealand male in
the Challenge Wanaka.
The men's race has been thrown wide open with the last-minute
withdrawal of defending champion and Challenge Wanaka course
record-holder Chris McDonald, of Australia.
Ussher, a three-time winner of the New Zealand Coast to
Coast, has recently returned from competing in an adventure
race in Abu Dhabi.
Rebekah Keat
The Nelson-based endurance athlete regularly mixes
long-distance triathlons with adventure events, held in some of
the most extreme locations and conditions around the world.
Two challengers from Europe are shaping as the international
front-runners in the men's race.
Petr Vabrousek, of the Czech Republic, and Germany's Marc
Pschebizin come with some impressive credentials and are both
returning to compete in their fourth straight Challenge
Wanaka.
Pschebizin won in 2008, hauling in a heartbroken McDonald
over the last 10km of the race, while Vabrousek was third
last year, and in the inaugural 2007 event.
The lanky former rower from the Czech Republic was leading
the first Challenge Wanaka, but after being forced to stop
for a 15-minute time penalty he eventually finished third and
was then disqualified for wearing webbed gloves during the
Lake Wanaka swim leg.
United States athlete Justin Daerr is an outside chance
in the men's race, but will need a strong run to follow on from
his favoured bike leg.
Daerr finished fourth last year, when he was run down by
Williams and Vabrousek, after setting a course cycle record
and starting the marathon placed second behind eventual
winner McDonald.
Challenge Wanaka
Race facts
Swim: 3.8km
Bike: 180km
Run: 42.2km
Athletes entered: 1014 (a 114% increase from 2009)
Individuals entered: 165 (up 18%)
Teams entered: 84 - up 108%
Countries represented: 24
Race records
Men: 8hr 37min 41sec, Chris McDonald (AUS) 2009.
Women: 9hr 28min 27sec Gina Crawford (NZL) 2009.
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