Happy Van Berkel primed for world assault
GOLD Coast triathlete Tim Van Berkel has overcome a poor swim to finish second at the 70.3 Sunshine Coast in his final hitout before next month’s Ironman World Championships in Hawaii.
Van Berkel struggled to get going in the early stages of the Mooloolaba race on Sunday and exited the 1.9km swim in 12th position and more than a minute down on leader and eventual winner Dan Wilson from Brisbane.
It forced the 33-year-old to push even harder on the 90km bike leg and despite finding the going difficult, Van Berkel edged his way to fifth before producing the fastest 21.1km run split of 1 hour 12 minutes and 58 seconds to secure a place on the podium.
“I have been training for Hawaii and I did this race as a hitout,” Van Berkel said.
“My day started pretty slow and I had a bad swim, so I had work to do on the bike.
“I bridged up to the group by 20km but it hurt me.
“I really struggled for the rest of the bike but once I got on to the run I felt good and I haven’t felt that good on the run all year.
“I let loose and ran fast and had a good time and made the podium. So I am pretty happy with the day.”
Wilson led from start to finish and held on in the final stages of the run after throwing everything at the bike leg.
“I had a pretty good transition and had a little gap to the main pack out of the water and just thought I would test myself out on the bike to extend the lead a bit,” Wilson said.
“I had a crack, committed to it and that was pretty much it – by 20km I had a minute lead and it was about burying the head and getting the job done.
“It was four hours of hard slog out there and I was feeling good and going for it early on but the last 10km of a 70.3 is always very hard.
“It is always in the back of your mind there is a pack behind you with some good runners and the legs were feeling pretty knackered so I was conscious of holding it together.”