Litter fine fails to floor Kiwi Hewitt

ANDREA HEWITT copped a career-first penalty for littering but recovered to finish third in the International Triathlon Union race in Auckland to boost her Rio Olympic Games prospects.

Hewitt’s initial plan had been to have a good swim and then use the bike leg to try and build an advantage over the series leader, American Gwen Jorgensen, whose biggest strength is the final 10km run.

The 32-year-old had a fair swim although at one point she took a kick to her shoulder where she broke her collarbone last September. She came out of the water in the second group with Jorgensen, after nine athletes pushed hard on the swim to get out of the water with a 30-second advantage.

‘‘We were riding hard especially up the hills. I was pretty happy to be in it, I came out of the swim and I heard 30 seconds down and I didn’t see in the swim that a group had got away so I was happy when we caught up,’’ Hewitt said.

‘‘I actually felt better in the second half of the bike, so that was good and yeah, on the run, it was the second half where I really pushed.’’

Hewitt had no choice but to go out hard in the run after she was given her first penalty for littering on the course after she dropped a gel outside the designated zone.

‘‘I only heard on the second lap that I had it, and then I thought ‘oh no’ because I knew that I’d dropped my gel but I thought that I’d dropped it in the right place, but I knew straight away it was that.’’

She said that she had the 15-second time penalty on her mind as soon as she was aware of it and had to strategically plan when was the opportune moment. ‘‘I was like, I can’t take it at the end because I want to have a chance to get on the podium so I took it on the third lap but I felt really good, so yeah.’’

She put in a stellar final push to overhaul Czech triathlete Vendula Frintova and finish just behind the American one-two of Jorgensen and Katie Zaferes.

The result in Auckland and her third place finish at the grand final in Edmonton at the end of last year means under proposed Triathlon NZ selection criteria (which have yet to be ratified) Hewitt has potentially already secured a nomination to the Rio Games.