The first Oceania Cup of the year took place today in Wanaka, New Zealand. Taking on the Sprint distance, the athletes raced on a Friday evening in balmy conditions.
Women’s race
Ainsley Thorpe was the highest ranked woman starting while WTCS silver medallist Nicole Van Der Kaay was also on the start line. Both women are in contention for the New Zealand Olympic team and were looking to make a strong start to their seasons.
Unsurprisingly, Emma Jeffcoat of Australia seized the initiative on the swim and immediately put Thorpe and Van Der Kaay on the back foot. Van Der Kaay lost 21 seconds to Jeffcoat while Thorpe lost over a minute and did not finish the bike leg.
Among the group able to hang on to Jeffcoat’s pace were Mikayla Messer, Aleisha Wesley, Hannah Knighton and Brea Roderick. Both Messer and Wesley, however, lost time in T1. By the time they emerged onto the bike course, Jeffcoat, Knighton and Roderick had surged clear. Together, that trio flew around the six lap course, riding over 20 seconds faster than the next best athlete.
The fourth fastest cyclist just happened to be Van Der Kaay. As Jeffcoat, Knighton and Roderick pulled away, Van Der Kaay caught Wesley and dragged a small group including Olivia Thornbury into contention. Gradually, the Van Der Kaay-Thornbury group managed to limit the damage and began to pull some big turns. Yet by the time they arrived into T2, they trailed the Jeffcoat group by over 40 seconds.
Knighton struggled to keep pace with Jeffcoat and Roderick on the run and slipped behind. By the end of the first of the three run laps, Van Der Kaay had eaten into their lead.
Such was Van Der Kaay’s pace, neither Jeffcoat nor Roderick could react as she caught and passed the duo. Roderick tried to go with her and opened a small gap to Jeffcoat. Van Der Kaay, though, was simply peerless. Her 16:34 run split was 40 seconds faster than the next best woman and over a minute faster than Roderick and Jeffcoat.
As Van Der Kaay strode ahead to victory and Roderick consolidated second place, attention turned to the fast-closing Thornbury as she drew closer to Jeffcoat.
In the end, Thornbury ran out of room and settled for 4th as Jeffcoat earned bronze.
All three of the medallists will be racing at the Oceania Cup in Taupo next weekend. Taupo will see the return to action of Gwen Jorgensen but with Jeffcoat’s swimming and cycling form and Van Der Kaay’s running form, it promises to be a barn burner of a race.
Men’s race
A deep field consisting of primarily of athletes from Australia and New Zealand took to the water at Lake Wanaka.
Among them were Luke Willian and Jacob Birtwhistle, who will likely be contending against one another over the next year for the second male Australian Olympic slot. Australian youngster Toby Powers also started. Having aged out of the Junior ranks, the 2022 silver medallist from the World Junior Championships was making second Senior appearance on the international stage.
As with the women’s race, the tempo in the water was relentless from the start. The key difference with the men was that a group of men shared the workload. Among them were New Zealanders Dylan McCullough and Tayler Reid while both Willian and Birtwhistle were in the mix.
McCullough entered T1 first on the back of an 8:55 split although almost half the field had managed to keep within 10 seconds of him. Reid showed off his transition skills to get the jump on the group out of T1 but the field soon came back together.
Big turns from Kyle Smith and Bradley Course saw them move up to the front of the pack while the likes of Powers and Callum Mcclusky hung further back. Course ended up with the fastest split over the 18km, recording a 23:43 to highlight just how fast the circuit was.
All of the contenders thus emerged within striking distance of one another on the run.
Willian seemed to struggle with the pace and fell back, as did Powers. A group of four, consisting of Reid, McCullough, Birtwhistle and Smith, seemed to establish themselves at the front. That was when Mcclusky stepped things up a notch.
From further back in the field, he unleashed a monster 14:24 split to catch the leaders in style. The lead quartet all ran between 14:54 and 14:56, losing half a minute to Mcclusky. Such was his momentum, the others had no answer at the finish as he powered clear to take the win with an awesome show of speed. Indeed, the fact he out-split renowned runners like Birtwhistle was particularly noteworthy.
Birtwhistle, however, was disqualified for not serving a penalty on the run.
While Mcclusky stormed to victory, Smith bested Reid and McCullough in a sprint finish. As it happens, Wanaka was Smith’s first international start since 2020. He will be on the start line at WTCS Abu Dhabi in two weeks so will be a name to watch.
Reid managed to nab the bronze medal ahead of McCullough.
The evening, though, belonged to Mcclusky and it will fascinating to see what kind of speed he can produce in Taupo next week.
You can view the full results here.
