Triathlon star for Tauranga

One of the world’s greatest triathletes will compete in the Port of Tauranga Half today.

Spain’s Javier Gomez, described as the most wellrounded triathlete in history – with five ITU World Championships (2008, 2010, 2013-15), two Ironman 70.3 Championships (2014 and 2017), an XTERRA World Championship (2012), and a silver medal at the 2012 London Olympics – will race in the teams event, alongside his Kiwi partner Anneke Jenkins and his physiotherapist Oscar Vincente Rodriguez.

Jenkins will lead the team off in the 2km swim in Pilot Bay, with Gomez tackling the 90km bike course between Mt Maunganui and Papamoa, before handing over to Rodriguez on the 21.1km run, which takes in the base of the mountain.

The race will be Gomez’s first event of the year, after a stellar 2017 which, along with his 70.3 world champs win, included a second-placing in the ITU world champs, after victories in the Abu Dhabi and Montreal legs. He is also a possibility to compete in his first Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii, in September.

Jenkins is a top triathlete in her own right.

Coming from a strong swimming background, she took up the sport a few years ago, and received Triathlon New Zealand’s emerging talent award in 2013.

She won the 2014 Aquathon World Championship and was second at the European Cup event in Spain in both 2014 and 2016.

Veteran Cameron Brown is back and looking to win an 11th title.

The 45-year-old’s main competition is expected to come from the country’s rising star of longdistance triathlon, Mike Phillips, who recorded the world’s fastest debut in an Ironman event when coming second at the Barcelona Ironman in September last year.