World Triathlon

Over 3,000 athletes from Asia participated in this weekend’s ITU OSIM Asian Triathlon Championships with categories for youth, juniors, U/23, elite, age groups from 18 to 80, corporate relay and teams.

Go to the Singapore event page for full results and photos.

The event organized by the Singapore Triathlon Federation was the largest ever stage in Asia.In the elite men’s event, Australia’s Chris Hill joined forces with Japan’s Ryosuke Yamamoto, Tsukasa Hirano and Junichi Yamamoto to power their way through the 2 lap 1500m swim to form a tight hardworking group at the front of the 6 lap, 40km bike section.  Once onto the run, Hill ran away from the field to post the fastest run split of the day at 33.27 on the 2 lap 10km course.  Junichi Yamamoto was second overall and won the Asian Championship title.

It was a clean sweep of the podium by the Japanese with Yuichi Hosoda and Ryosuke Yamamoto claiming the second and third podium steps.

In the elite women’s category, Wang Hong Ni of China made triathlon history by being the first Chinese athlete to win the Asian Championships.  Ni posted the fastest run split of the day at 37:09.  It was Pip Taylor of Australia who exited the water first in 20:40, then worked with New Zealand’s Andrea Hewitt and Nicky Samuels, as well as Chinese team-mates Ni, Teng Chun Chun and Wang Dan to power their way through the technical bike section.Once off the bike, Taylor and Ni moved to the front and ran shoulder-to-shoulder until the final kilometer when Ni pulled away from Taylor to take the win and a place in the ITU Gamagori World Championships in September.

Japan made a clean sweep of the podium in the Under 23 men with Yukihiro Hiramatsu, Kenji Umatate and Syo Higashino finishing in that order.  Liu Yun of China spoiled Japan’s sweep of the women’s podium by taking the bottom set, as Keiko Tanaka was second and Ai Ueda was the top step.Japan won the men’s team title, with Kazahkstan and China taking 2nd and 3rd.  The Japanese women were upset for the first time by the Chinese, with Malaysian women taking 3rd.The event ended with a lovely evening of celebration at the Furama Riverfront Hotel, with lots of promises to reunite at the ITU Gamagori World Championships in September.

The ITU Asian Championships were followed by a 6 day ITU Asian Junior Development Camp staged by ITU’s Sport Development team of Brett Mace and Kristine Chambers. Emma Carney, 2 times World Champion and winner of 21 World Cup events, and Miles Browning, Australia’s successful high performance coach provided the sessions for the athletes from Singapore, Thailand, India, the Philippines, Hong Kong and Korea.