Westenra To Take On Current Champions

Westenra To Take On Current Champions

This year’s Speight’s Coast to Coast has been dubbed, “The Year of the Woman”. But even race director Robin Judkins couldn’t have predicted the women’s race we are about to see. Amid a record female entry, no less than three of the last four women’s world champions, will be on the start line. But the latest to throw her name in the hat is a blast from the past that many consider one of the best female multisporters of all time.

Four time Speight’s Coast to Coast champion, Jill Westenra, will be 44 when she lines up beside perhaps the best female field ever assembled for the 243k cycling, mountain running and white water kayaking race across New Zealand’s South Island. It’s been almost a decade since she won the first of her four successive world titles, but the Wellingtonian is back and she isn’t about to race in the veteran grade.

“I’ve always liked getting out there and racing everyone,” says Westenra, who has been lulled back to the race she dominated between 2000 and 2003 by a combination of unfinished business and wanting to see how she ranks amidst today’s much more competitive woman’s scene.

Indeed, since Westenra dominated the world scene, things have hotted up somewhat. No one doubts that she was, and might still be, a special athlete. After all, before she became queen of multisport the talented all rounder won New Zealand titles and wore the silver fern in triathlon, duathlon and mountain running. But in recent years the woman’s world scene has improved in leaps and bounds.

“For the first time in its 27 year history woman will make up more than 25 percent of the field,” says race director Robin Judkin’s of this year’s Speight’s Coast to Coast line up.

“For me it’s amazing,” he says. “In the first few One Day World Championships I had to actively search for women who were willing to do the race. Now we have a situation where the women’s One Day race is the feature event. As well as three former champions, there are half a dozen possible contenders and really no clear favourite.”

“The girls scene now is really competitive,” agreed Westenra the day after putting in her late entry. “It’s no secret that when I was winning it was a bit of a time trial. I was really just racing myself. But things seem more like a real race now, and I like racing.”

Westenra will certainly have a race on her hands. The 2008 and 2007 winners, Emily Miazga and Fleur Pawsey, will renew their rivalry from last year, when after 13 hours of racing Miazga passed Pawsey in the final 15 minutes to win by just 40 seconds.

It was the closest women’s race ever for the women’s world title race, but represented vindication for both athletes. Miazga, the Christchurch-based Canadian with her own brand of cookies and energy products, had won the title in 2006 only to have injury ruin her chances at defending in 2007, which saw the then unknown Pawsey surprise even herself with a totally unexpected win. One might have expected, then, that the Canterbury-born Pawsey would be disappointed to lose by so little in 2008. But she was quietly pleased to show that 2007 hadn’t been a fluke.

Despite Jill Westenra’s much-anticipated comeback, Miazga and Pawsey will be wary of a handful of fast-improving up and comers that include well-performed adventure racers such as Nelson’s Fleur Lattimore, Christchurch-based Dane Sia Svendsen, and former Speight’s Coast to Coast placegetters such as Christchurch’s Koleighne Ford-Collins and Kim Collins. But the contender they’ll watch closest will be Nelson-based Finn, Elina Ussher.

After finishing second to Miazga in 2006 the Finnish adventure racing, orienteering and cross country ski rep was tagged as the next champion. But she has struggled since, finishing fifth and seventh in the past two years. But this year her husband, three-time Speight’s Coast to Coast champion Richard Ussher, has bypassed the event to help his wife win her own world title.

Jill Westenra isn’t sure how she’ll shape up against this newfound depth. Of these women she has raced only Miazga and Ford-Collins at the Speight’s Coast to Coast, but she also isn’t sure how her body will respond to a return to world class racing.

“I am five or six years older,” she shrugs. “It’ll be interesting for me personally, just to see how my body will cope with that level and intensity of racing. A friend of mine said it’ll be a bit like doing my first Coast to Coast again… not quite knowing how I’ll go.”

“My running probably isn’t where it was when I was at my peak,” she says. “But I’ve kept my kayaking going and I’ve really enjoyed getting back on the bike. I feel fit, but you just don’t know until the day. I’ll just be doing my own race. Focusing on myself, and then seeing where that puts me as the race progresses.”

Westenra may be older and untested for a few years, but no one will be surprised if she does carry off a fifth Speight’s Coast to Coast. She has never really left the sport; she has dabbling in K1 kayak racing, still runs most days, and recently dusted off her renowned cycling for a team in the 20th anniversary Tauranga Half Ironman, where she averaged an impressive 38k/hr for the 90k ride.

And there’s also a bit of unfinished business. In 2004 Westenra’s attempt at a record fifth consecutive title turned into a DNF when illness and extreme conditions conspired against her. “I should never have started in 2004,” she says of a string of injury and health problems that started the previous year after a bad fall doing rope work for the Primal Quest race in the USA.

“Before the race I was vomiting and shaking. Trevor (her partner) said I should pull out, but I just said it was nerves and I’d be ok once the race started. But I knew I shouldn’t be there.”

“There is a bit of redemption there I guess,” she agrees. “But I think there is something about sport and races like the Speight’s Coast to Coast that keeps pulling you back too.”

“I mean, I only ever thought I’d do the Coast to Coast once – just to do it, and hopefully win it – but I ended up doing it six times. I was reading in the paper about Lance Armstrong, and he was talking about the same thing. I wouldn’t compare myself to him… but anybody who gets into this stuff… you don’t just walk away… It’s part of you. You keep fit, you follow the results, you compare what you did with what people are doing now… I just decided I’d give it one more shot.”

ENDS

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