World Triathlon grand final in Auckland comes to a close

  • Breaking
  • 21/10/2012

By 3 News online staff

The World Triathlon grand final event in Auckland is coming to a close today, after thousands of athletes descended on the city over the past week.

The elite ITU World Championship races took place over the weekend in the Auckland CBD, but the event has actually lasted a week, allowing a huge number of people to take part in various triathlon-type events.

Around 3000 athletes from 45 different countries took part across elite, junior, under-23, age group and paratriathlon races.

The event kicked off last Sunday with a kids’ TRYathlon at St Heliers, then a Sport and Lifestyle Expo at Queens Wharf began on Tuesday.

The Aquathlon World Championships and the Elite/Junior/Under-23 men and women’s races were on Wednesday.

The official opening ceremony for the World Championships was held on Thursday with a parade of nations and a party for the athletes.

The Elite women’s race was on Saturday, won by German Anne Haug, with American Gwen Jorgensen in second place and Barbara Riveros Diaz from Chile in third. Overall in the ITU rankings though, first place was taken by Swede Lisa Norden, with Haug in second place. Kiwi Andrea Hewitt came third overall and another New Zealander, Kate McIlroy, came in 10th.

The Elite men’s race was held on Sunday in rather unfortunate weather. Spain’s Javier Gomez came first, with Brit Jonathan Brownlee in second and Swiss Sven Riederer in third place. Overall though in the ITU rankings, Brownlee is now in first place, with Gomez in second and Dmitry Polyanskiy from Russia in third. The top New Zealand result was from Ryan Sissons, who came in 11th place in the race, and 19th in the ITU rankings. Bevan Docherty came in 14th in the race, and 14th in the ITU rankings.

Today is the age groups World Championships and the ParaTriathlon World Championships, and the event finishes with a closing party at The Cloud tonight. There are still some road closures around the CBD and the waterfront.

3 News

source: newshub archive