Africa Triathlon

In a repeat of the 2003 Queenstown World Championships, Peter Robertson and Emma Snowsill took the top podium stops at the ITU world triathon championships.

Australians Peter Robertson and team-mate Emma Snowsill were awe-inspiring in hot, humid and trying conditions as they raced to victories in the 1.5km swim, 40km cycle and 10km run men’s and women’s races.

In the men’s race Robertson, a Sydney and Athens Olympian was considered a rank outsider before he unleashed a courageous run to beat Swiss athlete Reto Hug and another Australian, Brad Kahlefeldt.

In the women’s race it was an Australian one-two with Snowsill beating her own team-mate Annabel Luxford with American Laura Bennett finishing third.

The men’s race came down to the final run with a pack of more than 50 triathletes entering the final transition together.

It was Robertson, a world champion in 2001 and 2003, who took the initiative early and led throughout. 

Robertson just held off a fast-finishing Hug in an exciting finish which had spectators on their feet. 

Kahlefeldt produced another strong run to beat Athens Olympic Gold Medalist, Hamish Carter of New Zeland by 5 seconds, with Frederic Belaubre of France fifth and Sydney Olympic Gold Medallist Simon Whitfield sixth. 

The men’s gold medal was won in a time of 1 hour, 49 minutes, 39 seconds.

The women’s race result was set up in the opening swim leg with Snowsill, Luxford and Bennett in the front pack leaving the water along with former World #1 Barb Lindquist and defending World Champion Sheila Taormina. 

These five friendly foes worked brilliantly together to keep the rest of the field at bay, including the recently crowned European Champion, Vanessa Fernandes of Portugal.

These five Americans and Australians gained a good lead over the main field in the bike and entered the final run together more than 2 minutes ahead of any of their rivals.

While Snowsill, Luxford and Bennett were able to maintain their medal-winning lead, Fernandes ran herself into 4th place with Italian Olympian Nadia Cortassa 5th, Australian Felicity Abram 6th and Great Britain’s Andrea Whitcombe and Liz Blatchford 7th and 8th respectively.

Earlier in the day 18 year old Steve Duplinsky won gold in the Junior Men’s race from German Jonathan Zipf, with France’s Aurelien Raphael.

Results of today’s races, photos, and releases are available on www.triathlon.org.