Hewitt Second In Madrid

Hewitt Second In Madrid In Yet Another Great World Cup Day For The Kiwis

Andrea Hewitt has once again confirmed her status as one of the leading triathletes in the world with a stunning second place finish at the Madrid round of the International Triathlon World Cup in Spain overnight.

Hewitt repeated her runner up finish of a year ago, finishing behind the irrepressible Vanessa Fernandes with the Portuguese athlete winning an incredible fifth Madrid race in succession.

25 year old Hewitt once again showed the improved strength in her running however in a race that saw a mass exit on to the 10km run leg after the failure of anyone to break away on the bike leg. Nicky Samuels and Taryn McLeod joined Hewitt in a bunch of over 30 athletes arriving at the final transition together.

Hewitt was delighted with her form.

“My swim was great (second out of the water) and I achieved what I wanted on the bike – that was not to do too much work! After doing so much here last year I wanted to sit up and let someone else do the work knowing I can back my leg speed at the moment – and that is exactly how it played. I pretty much ran shoulder to shoulder with Michelle (Dillon) the entire run. I didn’t know what sort of a finish she had so I waited as long as I could before kicking at the end. I felt great and as it turned out had her pretty well covered.”

The good news did not end there for New Zealand however with fourth ranked Kiwi Nicky Samuels finishing strongly in eighth place, just the third time the Whangarei athlete has finished in the top ten at an ITU World Cup race.

Samuels explained her tactics.

“My run has been poor of late so off the bike my focus was to start conservatively and finish strongly. I managed that comfortably and ran through a few in the closing stages. I finished with a smile feeling like I can run again!

Arguably the result of the day however belonged to Taryn McLeod with a break through result that could well earn the Dunedin athlete a start at the World Championships in Hamburg later this year. Her 16th place overall fulfills Triathlon NZ criteria of a top 25 finish at a World Cup for athletes to be considered for the World Championships.

McLeod was understandably delighted.

“This feels just fantastic; I feel incredibly proud right now. The hard work and focus paid off and now the top 25 has been conquered it is onwards and upwards from here.”

McLeod may now face a nervous wait to see which of the New Zealanders ahead of her on the rankings list decide to compete at Hamburg but with the Beijing Olympic qualifying race just a fortnight later, it is expected a number will choose to bypass Hamburg this year. If that is the case McLeod knows today’s result qualifies her under Triathlon New Zealand criteria.

ITU World Cup R5 Madrid, Spain

Elite Women Results

Rank Name Nation Gross time Diff.
1 Vanessa FERNANDES
Portugal 2:07:33
2 Andrea HEWITT
Christchurch/NZ 2:08:25 0:00:53
3 Michelle DILLON
Great Britain 2:08:30 0:00:57
4 Annabel LUXFORD
Australia 2:08:45 0:01:13
5 Elizabeth MAY
Luxembourg 2:09:09 0:01:37
6 Anja DITTMER
Germany 2:09:20 0:01:47
7 Lenka ZEMANOVA
Czech Republic 2:09:21 0:01:49
8 Nicky SAMUELS
Whangarei/NZ 2:09:26 0:01:54
9 Eva DOLLINGER
Austria 2:09:29 0:01:57
10 Marion LORBLANCHET
France 2:10:16 0:02:44
PLUS
16 Taryn MCLEOD
Dunedin/NZ 2:11:17 0:03:45

ends

© Scoop Media