Murray is ‘pretty happy’ with his great season
JOHANNESBURG: Missing out on an overall podium place in the World Series was no train smash for Richard Murray as he looks to claim his second Super League Triathlon title in Jersey over the weekend.
The South African triathlon ace won the inaugural Super League title in Hamilton in February which is raced over three stages in two days.
Last weekend Murray finished in sixth place at the WTS Grand Finale in Rotterdam, slipping from third place overall to fourth after Norway’s Kristian Blummenfelt bunny hopped past him to clinch bronze.
“During the season I was just having a bit of fun, it became a bit more serious, it was not the plan to finish so high up on the WTS rankings this year,” Murray said.
“I’m pretty happy with how I ended up and it was a great season, which has been 15-odd races since the start in Cape Town.”
The Super League consists of three super sprint triathlons of a 400m swim, 10km cycle, and 2.5km which will be mixed up with the first stage consisting of a swim-bikerun, a run-bike-swim on the second, before concluding with a bike-swimrun.
On the second day the slowest athletes will be eliminated with only the top 15 racing stage two, while only the remaining 10 will race in the third and final stage.
“I am looking forward to it, it is a different take on (a) triathlon, I quite enjoy it, it is high paced,” Murray said.
Murray did a fair bit of racing in 2017 which included his maiden Half Ironman in Slovakia, while he also competed a marathon distance in the Wings for Life race in the Netherlands.
“Maybe not training so much and doing more races has kept me fresher, happier and feeling excited about racing,” Murray said about all the mileage he has done in racing this year.
“That is sometimes the key, just enjoying the racing and having fun, so there was a different approach. I try not to over think things too much and just have some fun.”
He will bring his season to an end at the Island House Triathlon Invitational in the Bahamas in November.
Murray said he will take a more serious approach to his 2018 season, as he starts building towards the Tokyo Olympics.
“As the years are going on hopefully I’m getting better and we’ll see leading up to Tokyo,” he said.
“Next year I will be focussing a bit more on the World Series, but I will also be throwing in some fun stuff too.”