Triathlete Bozzone crowned World Champion

New Zealand has a new world champion in brilliant North Harbour triathlete Terenzo Bozzone who won the World 70.3 (Half Ironman) Championship in USA today.

Bozzone made up for the disappointment of missing out on the Beijing Olympics to claim the world title at Clearwater, Florida.

The former world junior triathlon champion paced himself well, racing handily in the 2km swim and 90km bike before racing clear on the 21km run for the win, in his third attempt at the championship that began in 2006.

The 23 year old was ecstatic with his victory in 3hr 40min 10sec, a new world’s best time.

“It’s everything that I’ve wanted and more. “I’m in a fairytale dream at the moment,” Bozzone said.

“Third time lucky,” he laughed. “The competition here is so awesome. Craig Alexander won the first year, Andy Potts the next. They’re both unbelievable athletes – this is definitely the crème de la crème of Ironman 70.3. I probably overdid the first couple of years doing everything I could to win. Today I was going for the perfect wave and today I found it.”

Defending champion Potts (USA), another to miss out on the Olympics, led out of the water in a record 21min 44sec for the 2km. He was not caught until midway through the bike, with a group of 10 riders, including Bozzone, Potts, pre-race favourite Oscar Galindez (ARG) and Richie Cunningham (AUS), went clear late on the bike leg.

The New Zealander made a lightening quick transition to lead on to the run. From there he was never headed, setting a blistering pace to gradually pull away from the field. He opened 1min 30sec advantage and had plenty in the tank to hold off fast finishing German Andreas Raelert who was second 32 seconds behind at the finish.

The German put together a 1:10 run split, but ran out of real estate as he gained on Bozzone, who run a superb 1hr 12min. Australia’s Richie Cunningham put together another top finish in Clearwater to claim third, followed by Galindez.
“Coming from the ITU racing, everyone runs fast there,” Bozzone said. “This year I held back a bit on the bike and gave it all on the run.”

Joanna Zeiger won the women’s championship from Mary Beth Ellis and Becky Lavelle for an American clean sweep.

There was a US100,000 prize purse up for grabs.

World 70.3 (Half Ironman) Championships
Results, men:
Terenzo Bozzone (NZL) 3:40:10, 1; Andreas Raelert (DEU) 3:40:42, 2; Richie Cunningham (AUS) 3:41:47, 3; Oscar Galindez (ARG) 3:42:28, 4; Reinaldo Colucci (BRA) 3:43:22, 5; Andy Potts (USA) 3:44:30, 6; Luke McKenzie (AUS) 3:45:11, 7; Brent McMahon (CAN) 3:45:43, 8; Joe Gambles (GBR) 3:46:23, 9; Fraser Cartmell (GBR) 3:46:34, 10.


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