SA Triathlon Championships 2011 race report

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Wednesday, 23 March 2011 15:40

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Don wins, but Eksteen crowned SA Champion

Britain’s Tim Don may have won the Africa Cup in Port Elizabeth on Sunday 20 March, but the title of South African Champion went to Claude Eksteen.

The South African Championships were held in conjunction with the Africa Cup in Port Elizabeth on 20 March. Britain’s Tim Don, who trains in Stellenbosch in the South African summer, saw this as the perfect opportunity to test his fitness and race against South Africa’s – and Africa’s - best.

Clearly the Brit is in good shape after an almost 2 minute win over Claude Eksteen, but the South African will take great comfort from the fact that this was arguably his best race in a long time - against a Duathlon World Champion and Triathlon World Cup winner.

Held over the usual 1500m swim, 40km cycle and 10km run, Don meant business from the word go. Attacking the minute he hit the water, Don dragged Henri Schoeman, Wikus Weber, Erhard Wolfaardt and Jeff Norton with him and by the time they started the second lap the group had a lead of about 35 seconds over Rudolf Naude, Hendrik De Villiers and Claude Eksteen.

Out on the bike – on a three lap of 13km loop – the earlier perfect weather conditions had changed to extremely hot. This did not stop Don from setting his own scorching pace on the bike. Coming out of the water with him and onto the bike leg were Wikus Weber, Erhard Wolfaardt, Henri Schoeman and Morroco’s Medhi Essadiq. Medhi soon fell off the pace with Don, Wolfaardt, Weber and Schoeman rolling together on the bike leg.  Weber was having the race of his life. Wolfaardt was also not letting them go. By the start of the second lap, the chase group of De Villiers, Eksteen and Naude were 50 seconds adrift.

At the start of the third lap of the bike, Don, Weber and Wolfaardt had almost 90 seconds on the chasers. Midway through the third lap though Wolfaardt punctured which effectively ended his race.

The furious pace on the bike was beginning to pay off when Don and Weber entered T2 together with a 90-second lead over the chasing pack.  Schoeman was just behind Weber and Don. The 1st 1,5km of the run saw Weber stick to Don and then Tim turned on the heat.  He eventually won in a time of 1:54:51 and with Eksteen catching Weber on the final lap he finished 2nd overall and claiming the SA title in 1:56:52. Weber finishing 3rd in a time of 1:57:23 finished off the podium places.  His 3rd position overall was good enough to secure his national under 23 elite title ahead of Rudolf Naude in a time of 1:59:41.  Defending champion Richard Murray finished 3rd in a time of 2:00:19.

In the women’s race Carlyn Fischer lived up to her potential by claiming her first Senior National title and winning the Africa Cup. With the leading pack from the start, Fischer ran away from the field with a 39:35 10km split to cross the line in 2:11:58 – a full minute ahead of Zsofia Toth (Hun) with Mari Rabie rounding out the podium.

In the ladies under 23 elite race, Lauren Dance won in a time of 2:15:15, beating Taylor Glover into second with a 69 second margin.

Wian Sullwald, who represented South Africa at the first ever Olympic Youth Games and finished 8th – was in a class of his own in the Junior race. A 30 second lead in the swim, became a 2’30” lead after the bike and he finished a full three minutes ahead of Alex Rossouw. Abri van der Walt was third.

Zimbabwe’s Laurelle Brown pipped South Africa’s Ashleigh Blackwell by three seconds to win the Juniors race.