Monday, 15 August 2011 08:29
South African triathletes shine in Hungary
One week after Gwen Jorgensen (USA) qualified for the London 2012 Olympic Games, the rising American star backed it up with her first World Cup win at the 2011 Tiszaujvaros ITU Triathlon World Cup. She continued her blistering form today in Hungary after taking silver last weekend on the Olympic course in London.
In the men's race, Capetonian and BSG Elite team member Richard Murray finished in 8th place. A promising result for the youngster and no doubt a sign of things to come. Compatriot, Team Inov-8 athlete Claude Eksteen of Durban crossed the line not far behind in a solid 13th place.
In the women's race, Italy's Annamaria Mazzetti held on for the silver, her second career World Cup medal while Russia's Irina Abysova took the bronze.
Japan's Akane Tsuchihashi led the swim and the first transition but failed to capitalise on her 7-second lead over second placed Lang. Going into the second lap, Lang shared her lead with Switzerland's Celine Schaerer.
The race, which saw numerous changes in the lead, quickly broke into two packs in the 40km bike course. The second pack during the bike, where Jorgensen was placed, couldn't catch the first led by Briton's Kerry Lang, Russia's Liubov Ivanovskaya and Line Jensen from Denmark.
Schaerer and Sara Vilic (CRO) led going into the second transition with no clear packs. But out on the run course, Jorgensen wasted no time in attacking first placed Mazzetti and Tsuchihashi. Between the second transition and second lap of the run Jorgensen shifted into another gear, moving up 27 places to sixth. From there on she didn't look back passing run leader Mazzetti and snatching the gold in the thrilling final lap.
Jorgensen blazed to the day's fastest run split at 33:49, a full 42 seconds faster than any other woman on the 10km run course.
In the men's race, Canadian veteran Brent McMahon snatched a resurgent victory today at the 2011 Tiszaujvaros ITU Triathlon World Cup.
In a thrilling final lap comeback, McMahon denied Great Britain's Aaron Harris pole position and put to rest any disappointments over his failure to make the start list for last Sunday's race at Hyde Park on the London 2012 Olympic course.
Harris, who made his World Cup debut last month in Edmonton with a 37th place finish, took second silver in just his second World Cup race.
Akos Vanek brought the Hungarian crowd to their feet with a bronze medal performance, 28 seconds behind the winner. That brought together six different flags for the two podiums for the men's and women's races.
Despite a strong Russian presence at the front throughout the race Igor Polyanskiy, who took the swim prime, missed out on a podium position after fading late in the run and finished 53 seconds behind McMahon.
"All season I've been struggling with the start of my run and really building the back half, I went no harder this time but I still knew I had the back half to go," said McMahon. "So at five K, I was like 'let's do this, let's get into second place'. I picked the pace up and dropped the other guys on my shoulder and move into second place and then I was biding my time until first place."
The Canadian pulled out all the stops in the final lap on the run, blistering past Harris and breaking the tape at 1 hour, 48 minutes, 16 seconds for his first career World Cup title. Harris followed seven seconds later for silver and collapsed at the finish line due to heat exhaustion. He was carried off to medical and recovered.
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