Kiwis Dominate Edmonton World Cup Race

25th June 2007 - For immediate release

Kiwis Dominate Edmonton World Cup Race

New Zealand's elite male triathletes have dominated the latest round of the BG World Cup triathlon series at Edmonton in Canada this morning (NZT) with Olympic silver medalist Bevan Docherty striding away to an emphatic victory with team mates Kris Gemmel (4th) Terrenzo Bozzone (6th) and Shane Reed (9th) all inside the top ten.

The eighth round of the World Cup has served to confirm New Zealand's position as one of the leading countries in an increasingly global sport of significance and depth.

Docherty's win will propel him to number one in the ITU points rankings and with Gemmell and Shane Reed also in the overall top ten, two time world junior champion Bozzone racing up the rankings, and three women in the top ten rankings the sport continues to show the way on the international stage.

Docherty's day played out to near perfection with a comfortable swim ensuring he was in amongst a large lead group on the bike. The 40km ride was largely without incident before Docherty put the foot down to take the lead early on the 10km run.

While Docherty, Gemmell and Reed are used to top ten results, perhaps the biggest thrill for the New Zealanders was the sight of Terrenzo Bozzone joining them. The North Shore athlete is coming off a long layoff due to injury and knee surgery last year and was delighted with his second best ever World Cup finish behind a fourth in Honolulu in 2005.

"The last few weeks have been tough for various reasons so I was more determined than ever to nail a good race today. I was aggressive on the swim; made sure I was in the lead bunch on the bike and then enjoyed a strong run. I did suffer a little on the second lap of the run with stomach cramps and lost a few places but came back strong on the last lap to overtake a few guys."

The result will propel Bozzone up the world rankings and almost certainly into fourth ranked New Zealander on ITU points. Bozzone's goal was to achieve just that and earn a start at the Beijing World Cup race in September, an event that doubles as New Zealand's first Olympic trial race for 2008.

To cap a great day for New Zealand, world number 148 Martin Van Barneveld enjoyed one of his better days on the World Cup circuit with a 27th place finish, just over 5 minutes behind Docherty. The result is Van Barneveld's best of the year in a World Cup race.

BG World Cup, Edmonton, Canada

Elite Men

Rank / Name / Nation / Gross time / Diff.
1 / Bevan DOCHERTY / Auckland/New Zealand / 1:45:54 / -
2 / Alexander BRUKHANKOV / Russian Federation / 1:46:14 / 0:00:21
3 / Sven RIEDERER / Switzerland / 1:46:42 / 0:00:49
4 / Kris GEMMELL / Palmerston Nth/New Zealand / 1:46:43 / 0:00:50
5 / Reinaldo COLUCCI / Brazil / 1:46:54 / 0:01:01
6 / Terenzo BOZZONE / North Shore/New Zealand / 1:46:58 / 0:01:05
7 / Matthew REED / United States / 1:47:06 / 0:01:13
8 / Simon AGOSTON / Austria / 1:47:14 / 0:01:21
9 / Shane REED / New Plymouth/New Zealand / 1:47:17 / 0:01:24
10 / Ivan VASILIEV / Russian Federation / 1:47:18 / 0:01:25

PLUS

27 / Martin VAN BARNEVELD / Auckland/New Zealand / 1:50:57 / 0:05:04

Full results and information can be found at www.triathlon.org

ENDS

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