Spanish sporting run continues in ITU Triathlon series

Weather conditions were warm, the pace fierce and the competition was hot in Hamburg as huge crowds lined the streets to watch the elite men’s World Champs series race overnight New Zealand time and it was a return to form for 2008 World Champion Javier Gomez as the Spaniard ran away from home favourite Jan Frodeno and Brit Tim Don to win his first major race in almost two years.

The 25 degree temperatures and overcast skies saw a non wetsuit swim, one that was dominated as expected by the large and powerful swimming Russian contingent with young Denis Vasiliev leading the race out of the water. Kiwi James Elvery was in touch with the leaders in 24th place while Bevan Docherty was back in 35th, 29 seconds behind Vasiliev.

The Russians work in the water did see a group of 13 athletes get away on the first lap of the flat, tight and technical 8 lap bike course. The group included some of the sports heavyweights in Olympic Champion Frodeno (GER), Gomez, Don (GBR) and Maik Petzold (GER). The Kiwis were already being forced into catch up mode having to work doubly hard to stay in touch with the fast moving lead group.

Docherty showed his remarkable strength in bridging the gap from the chase group to the leaders, going solo to join them on lap two of the bike while Elvery bided his time as the chasers slowly but surely caught the leaders to form a large lead group of 36 by the start of lap 3.

Vasiliev decided to follow up his great swim with a daring bike ride, breaking clear with 3 laps to ride to establish a lead heading into the run. The only triathlete to respond was American Mark Fretta as he too rode solo to join Vasiliev 12 seconds clear of the main pack which had grown to in excess of 50 triathletes as Simon Whitfield led the chase group (including Kiwi Callum Millward) up to the main bunch forming a dangerous freight train through the tight and twisting Hamburg CBD circuit.

The run quickly turned into a two man race as Gomez and Frodeno went clear from a chase group that included Don, Brad Kahlefeldt (AUS), Sven Riederer (SUI) but unfortunately not Docherty. The big Kiwi featured early in the run but struggled to maintain contact in the middle stages and withdrew not long after the halfway mark, perhaps with the next round in London a week away playing large on Docherty’s thoughts.

James Elvery held his form well over the 10km run to finish in 33rd place and the best of the Kiwis with a 31:41 run split. Like Docherty, Ben Pattle struggled throughout the run leg to finish a distant 53rd on a day of speed rarely matched in the history of the sport.

The lack of points sees Docherty drop five places to tenth on the overall rankings with just London and Kitzbuhel to go before the season finale in Budapest. The elite women, including Kiwis Andrea Hewitt, Teresa Adam and Rebecca Kingsford race Sunday evening NZT.

Dextro Energy ITU World Championship Series
Race four, Hamburg
Elite men
1 Javier Gomez ESP 1:43:07
2 Jan Frodeno GER 1:43:23
3 Tim Don GBR 1:43:57
4 Sven Riederer SUI 1:44:00
5 Vladimir Turbayevskiy RUS 1:44:03
Plus Kiwis
33 James Elvery NZL 1:45:35
53 Ben Pattle NZL 1:53:02
DNF Bevan Docherty NZL