The Weekend Box Mar 9 2014
A week before some major races, the Weekend Box presents a piquant farrago of triathletic contests – the second straight post-baby sprint victory for Sarah Haskins, a clutch home country win for a Chilean star, some new Winter Triathlon disciplines which led to a World Champion’s loss in Quebec, and a promisingly swift 10k run for an Ironman contender in Germany.
Haskins wins another sprint and Andrew Yorke edges Ben Kanute at Sarasota
Sarah Haskins won her second straight sprint title 7 months after the birth of her daughter Caroline and Canadian Andrew Yorke edged Ben Kanute of the U.S. at the PATCO Sprint Triathlon Pan American Championship in Sarasota, Florida.
Sara McLarty led the women’s swim with a 9:48 split, followed closely by fellow U.S. competitors Erin Dolan and Tamara Gorman (9:51), Canadian Amelie Kretz, (9:53) and Haskins (9:56). Haskins and McLarty broke away on the bike with 28:25 and 28:32 splits respectively which gave the duo a 40-seconds lead on Kretz, 53 on Gorman, the rising Rapid City, South Dakota star, and just under a minute on Joanna Brown of Canada and Kaitlin Donner of the U.S.
While McLarty fell to 7th with a 19:21 run, Haskins defended her lead with a 5th-best 17:39 5k split that surrendered 10 seconds to Kretz and 4 seconds to Gorman. Haskins finished in 57:03 with a 36 seconds margin of victory over runner-up Kretz and 42 seconds on Gorman, who took the final sport on the podium. Brown took 4th, 8 seconds behind Gorman, and Kaitlin Donner charged hard with a race-best 17:09 run that brought her 5th, 16 seconds behind Brown.
“Right now I think it’s tougher because I’m still getting in a little bit of training between races, because it’s early in the season,” Haskins said of her back-to-back wins. Haskins won the Clermont, Florida ITU Sprint Triathlon Pan American Cup last weekend.
In the men’s elite race, Hunter Lussi emerged first from the swim in 8:47, which gave him a 16 seconds advantage on Ben Kanute and 40-plus seconds on a group that included super-runners Andrew Yorke of Canada and Lukas Verzbicas and Jarrod Shoemaker of the U.S. On the multi-lap bike leg, Kanute (25:59), Yorke (25:33) and Leonardo Chacon of Costa Rica (25:37) led a pack of 8 into T2 while Shoemaker (26:34) and Verzbicas (27:06) dropped a minute.
On the run, Yorke and Kanute quickly ran away from the rest of the lead bike pack. Yorke’s 4th-fastest 15:03 run brought him to the finish in 50:58 with a 6-seconds margin of victory over Kanute, who ran 15:09. Costa Rican Olympian Leonardo Chacon took 3rd in 51:19. Three men who were dropped by the lead bike breakaway ran furiously fast but could only just break into the top 10. Alexander Hinton of Canada ran a race-best 14:39 to take 7th, Lukas Verzbicas ran 14:54 to take 8th, and Jarrod Shoemaker ran 14:50 to place 9th.
I knew Andrew (Yorke) was a great runner,” said Kanute. “[While] my run has gotten so much better this year, all I wanted to do was stick with him, but he just had a little more to give than I did.”
Stephanie Jenks of the United States won the Junior women’s title in 59:57 and Xavier Grenia-Talavera of Canada won the Junior men’s crown in 53:57.
A Canadian team won the first-ever PATCO Mixed Relay Pan American Championships by a 36 seconds margin over the runner-up U.S. team Sunday at Nathan Benderson Park in Sarasota, Florida.
Each member of the 4-person relay teams completed a 350-meter swim, a 6.4-kilometer bike leg and a 2-kilometer run.
Team Canada 1, which included Amelie Kretz, Andrew Yorke, Joanna Brown and Alexander Hinton, finished in a total time of 1:25:56. Team USA 1, which included Kaitlin Donner, Jarrod Shoemaker, Sara McLarty and Eric Lagerstrom, trailed the Canadians by 36 seconds and took the runner-up prize. Team Canada 2, which included Alex Coates, Gab Lagault, Alison Hooper and Zavier Grenia-Talavera, placed 3rd and finished 2 minutes 15 seconds behind Team USA 1.
In his debut with the USA Triathlon national team, recently retired star runner Alan Webb joined Summer Cook, Tamara Gorman and Lukas Verzbicas on Team USA 2 for a 13th-place finish in a time of 1:34:30.
Webb, the American mile record holder who retired from track after the Millrose Games in February, swam 350 meters in 4:48, biked 6.4k in 10:14 and ran 2k in 5:50. Webb’s times included a fall on the bike.
Verzbicas, who was the fifth American high school runner to break the 4-minute barrier in the mile (Webb, who ran 3:53:43, was the fourth) swam 4:42, biked 9:51 and ran 5:46. Verzbicas suffered near-fatal injuries in a bike training crash in August of 2012 and has made a remarkable comeback, although he has not yet returned to his pre-crash form which included an ITU World Cup victory.
Webb’s total time for his leg of the relay was 22:06 and Verzbicas posted a 21:26 leg. Andrew Yorke, who led the Canadian team to the mixed team relay victory, poste a time of 19:55 on his leg and his run split was 5:37.
PATCO Sprint Triathlon Pan American Championship
Sarasota, Florida
March 8, 2014
S 750m / B 20k / R 5k
Results
Elite Men
1. Andrew Yorke (CAN) 50:58
2. Ben Kanute (USA) 51:04
3. Leonardo Chacon (CRC) 51:19
4. Lukas Farkas (USA) 51:47
5. John Rasmussen (CAN) 52:13
6. Eric Lagerstrom (USA) 52:16
8. Lukas Verzbicas (USA) 52:25
9. Kevin McDowell (USA) 52:27
10. Jarrod Shoemaker (USA) 52:33
Elite Women
1. Sarah Haskins (USA) 57:03
2. Amelie Kretz (CAN) 57:39
3. Tamara Gorman (USA) 57:45
4. Joanna Brown (CAN) 57:53
5. Kaitlin Donner (USA) 58:09
6. Erin Dolan (USA) 58:34
7. Sara McLarty (USA) 58:48
10. Rebeccah Wassner (USA) 59:34
Junior Women
1. Stephanie Jenks (USA) 59:57
2. Avery Evenson (USA) 1:00:11
3. Vanessa De La Torre (MEX) 1:00:30
4. Taylor Knibb (USA) 1:01:07
5. Megan Dustin (USA) 1:01:23
Junior Men
1. Xavier Grenia-Talavera (CAN) 53:57
2. Jeremy Briand (CAN) 54:00
3. Eduardo Hernandez (MEX) 54:06
4. Russell Pennock (CAN) 54:10
5. Brent Demarest (USA) 54:30
Barbara Riveros-Diaz and Gonzalo Tellechea win South American Games tri
ITU star Barbara Riveros-Diaz of Chile and Gonzalo Raul Tellechea of Argentina won the elite titles at the South American Games Triathlon in Santiago, Chile.
Riveros-Diaz won the women’s elite contest after a back-and-forth duel with Pamela Oliveira of Brazil that came down to the run. Oliveira surged to a race-best 19:22 swim which gave her 1:29 lead over the second-best split of Riveros-Diaz. The Chilean cut that by 9 seconds on the first transition and by 44 seconds more with a race-best 1:04:43 bike split which left Oliveira’s lead at 36 seconds starting the run.
Using her rapid-turnover run form to high effect, Riveros-Diaz unleashed a race-best 35:53 run to pass Oliveira three-quarters through the 10k final leg. Riveros-Diaz and hit the finish in 2:02:31 to earn a home-country win with a 17 seconds margin of victory over Oliveira. Elizabeth Bravo of Ecuador placed 3rd, 3:33 back of the winner.
Gonzalo Raul Tellechea edged fellow Argentine Luciano Taccone by 4 seconds to win the men’s elite crown. Felipe Barraza of Chile took 3rd, 11 seconds back of Taccone.
South American Games Triathlon
Santiago, Chile
March 8, 2014
S 1.5k / B 40k / R 10k
Results
Men
1. Gonzalo Raul Tellechea (ARG) 1:52:43
2. Luciano Taccone (ARG) 1:52:47
3. Felipe Barraza (CHI) 1:52:58
4. Diogo Sclebin (BRA) 1:53:27
5. Juan Jose Andrade Figueroa (ECU) 1:54:03
Women
1. Barbara Riveros-Diaz (CHI) 2:02:31
2. Pamela Oliveira (BRA) 2:02:48
3. Elizabeth Bravo (ECU) 2:06:04
4. Beatriz Neres (BRA) 2:06:57
5. Romina Biagioli (ARG) 2:07:38
8. Valentina Carvallo (CHI) 2:10:36
Simocko, Gervais win innovative Winter Triathlon in Quebec
Dusan Simocko of Slovakia and Annie Gervais of Canada won the newly configured snowshoe run-speed skating-cross country skiing ITU Winter Triathlon in Quebec, Canada.
Newly crowned 4-time ITU Winter Triathlon World Champion Pavel Andreev of Russia finished a game 3rd, with two new disciplines replacing the standard ITU run-mountain bike-cross country skiing format for Winter Triathlon.
Andreev positioned himself well in the opening leg with a 4th-best 18:36 snowshoe run which gave him about a 40-seconds advantage on his top overall contenders Dusan Simocko of Slovakia and Marc-andré Bédard of Canada. That lead quickly evaporated on the ice rink as Bédard’s race-best 24:28 split and Simocko’s next-best 24:58 left Andreev (26:12) well in their wake.
Simocko took back the lead from Bédard and raced to the win with a race-best 18:56 split for the 8k cross country skiing leg – 32 seconds better than Bédard and 1:02 better than Andreev. Simocko finished in 1:04:33 with a 30 seconds margin of victory over Bédard and 1:46 over Andreev, who earned the final spot on the podium.
Winter Triathlon star Annie Gervais established a big lead on the skating leg to hold off a late surge by fellow Quebec province competitor Claude Godbout for a 14 seconds margin of victory.
Gervais started off in third, trailing Amber Ferreira of the U.S. by 20 seconds and Evelyne Blouin of Canada by 2 seconds. More important, she earned a 57-second advantage over to cross country skier and fellow Canadian Claude Godbout. Gervais essentially sealed her victory with a race-best 26:08 for the 12k skating leg which put 1:34 on Godbout and 1:09 on Evelyne Blouine.
Gervais’ 4th-best 24:27 cross country skiing leg was thus enough to hold off Godbout’s race-best 24:27 final leg for a 14-seconds margin of victory Blouin finished 3rd, 21 seconds back of Godbout.
First leg leader Ferreira fell to 9th with a 35:08 skate split and 28:08 time in the cross country ski.
Quebec ITU Winter Triathlon
Quebec, Canada
March 9, 2014
Snowshoe 5k / Speed skating 12k / XC Skiing 8k
Results
Elite men
1. Dusan Simocko (SVK) 1:04:33
2. Marc-andré Bedárd (CAN) 1:05:03
3. Pavel Andreev (RUS) 1:06:19
4. Aidan Lennie (CAN) 1:06:22
5. Ryan Kelly (USA) 1:06:43
Elite Women
1. Annie Gervais (CAN) 1:14:44
2. Claude Godbout (CAN) 1:14:58
3. Evelyne Blouin (CAN) 1:15:19
4. Kamila Borutova (CZE) 1:21:00
5. Elvy Lapointe (CAN) 1:21:37
Sebastian Kienle is making progress on his run
Ironman 70.3 World Champion and Ironman World Championship 3rd place finisher Sebastian Kienle has always had a killer bike split. But he has proved to be vulnerable at the biggest races on the run. Kienle fans can take heart that Sebastian is making progress on the run with news that he won a 10k road race in Rastaff, Germany in a fine time of 31:29. And, it could be argued that his baggy T shirt and pants added 10 seconds to his time.
Doping concerns in carnival
In the Southern German Carnival that is locally referred to as Fasnet no topic will stay untouched and our editor-in-chief noticed that even in small towns in the cycling passionate country that doping in cycling and Dr. Fuentes is still on everybody’s mind.
