News & Results |
 |
The Port of tauranga Half - NZ LD Champs
Tuaranga, New Zealand - January 9th 2010
Auckland teenager Michael Poole surprised many to become the youngest winner of the Port of Tauranga Half Ironman in Mt Maunganui today. |
|
Previous winner here and well known triathlete Kieron Doe was in the mix early on but pulled out after the bike. The women's winner was no surprise to anyone when Whangarei's Samantha Warriner ran down Swiss leader Caroline Steffen to claim back-to-back honours in the race that doubled as the official Triathlon New Zealand Championships. In the womens race Steffen the Australian based Swiss star, showed her class. The first national squad swimmer and professional cyclist made the most of those skills to lead out of the water and extend away at the front of the field on the bike. She built a 2min 40sec lead on Warriner followed by Joanna Lawn after the bike, but by the midway point the Kiwi Olympian had reduced that margin to 1min 20. It took until the final 3km undulating run around the Mount to catch the leader, with Warriner going on to win for the third time in 4:17.04, with Steffen second just 18 seconds behind. Three time champion Rebekah Keat (Australia), early four minutes behind the leader off the bike, had a 1:22.48 run to move up to third just ahead of Lawn. |
|
|
|
