With the first signs of the Australian autumn and the Antipodean triathlon season nearing its closing stages, the Devonport Oceania Cup doubled as the Oceania Sprint Championships.
Those racing from Oceania were eligible for the championships. Meanwhile, non-Oceanian athletes were eligible for valuable World Triathlon points towards their world ranking.
Men’s Race
In what was a heavily Oceanian field, some of the overseas representation came from the Pertl brothers, Lukas and Philip, from Austria. Lukas Pertl recently won an Asia Cup race in Hong Kong so arrived in Devonport in form.
Devonport, though, represented a step up with athletes such as WTCS gold medallist Jacob Birtwhistle and the winner of the Wanaka Oceania Cup Callum Mcclusky racing.
The race started with a long run into the sea; low tide had to all intents and purposes made the race a run-swim-bike-run. Conditions were a little choppy but few of the athletes showed any real difficulty.
The pace was high in the water from the off, with the likes of Dylan McCullough and Brandon Copeland taking turns throughout the early stages to inject speed into proceedings.
With low tide, there was another long run up the beach from the swim to T1. In a slight improvement from his recent Oceania Cup showings, Mccluksy was among the top-3 into T1 and he seemed to benefit from the extended beach run prior to T1.
Young Janus Staufenberg was around 10 seconds behind the leaders but the pack was big enough for him to quickly latch onto the front group on the bike.
Birtwhistle took charge over the early stages of the bike as Lukas Pertl led a trail of athletes into the front pack. Before long, the recently crowned Oceania Junior champion, Bradley Course, made his way into the lead group too.
With no one quite able to escape on the bike, though, it seemed the run would prove decisive. Already this year, the likes of Mcclusky and Course had shown reasons to be optimistic.
The WTCS experience of Copeland, McCullough and Birtwhistle told as they moved to the head of the field on the run. Course and Staufenberg managed to hold onto them, as did Mcclusky and Luke Bate.
It was Mcclusky that made the first move and he pushed clear over the first lap. At the halfway point, Birtwhistle had him in his sights and slowly began to reel in Mcclusky. With less than two kilometres to go, Birtwhistle sat on Mcclusky’s hip and looked in total control.
Mcclusky had shown great speed and fended off Birtwhistle’s first dig. As the closing straight drew closer, Birtwhistle went again and Mcclusky could not respond. A small gap grew as Mcclusky began to turn his attention to the on-rushing athletes from behind.
Birtwhistle ran 14:27 for the 5km to take the win in comfort. Mcclusky’s bravery throughout the run was rewarded with a hard-earned silver medal.
Copeland used his experience to hold off Staufenberg to round out the podium. McCullough held on for 5th. In doing so, McCullough won the Oceania U23 Sprint title, while Course won silver in the U23 category.
Women’s Race
Nicole Van Der Kaay came into Devonport as the clear favourite after winning the Oceania Cups in Wanaka and Taupo earlier this year.
For all of her recent impressive performances on the run, it was Van Der Kaay’s swim that impressed the most. Emma Jeffcoat led the women in the water, as has become her signature, however Van Der Kaay was right behind. Once onto the bike, the two women seized the initiative and tried to force a two woman breakaway.
Indeed for a large stint, Jeffcoat and Van Der Kaay were able to stay away from the field.
Gradually, their advantage was whittle down and the main pack bridged to the break. The likes of Brea Roderick, Kira Hedgeland and Ellie Hoitink were among that pack. Meanwhile, Charlotte Derbyshire also nudged herself into contention.
Towards the latter stages of the bike Sophie Linn pulled a big turn to stave off any putative attacks.
Van Der Kaay did not have the cleanest T2 ever but any small deficit was quickly wiped away. She promptly breezed past the likes of Hoitink and Roderick and established control of the race. T2 was the last time anyone really managed to get close to Van Der Kaay as she out-ran the next fastest runner by 13 seconds.
Kira Hedgeland produced the second fastest run of the day to earn the silver medal behind Van Der Kaay. Derbyshire was the only other woman to run under 17 minutes. Her time of 16:55 was enough to seal bronze.
In doing so Derbyshire also took the U23 win. Ellie Hoitink took the U23 silver medal after finishing 5th behind Sophie Linn in the open race.
View the full results here.
