Stanford happy as the Brits take a one-two in CapeTown
NON Stanford admitted it was good to be back as she secured second place behind British team-mate and best friend Vicky Holland in the first ITU Triathlon World Cup event of the year in Cape Town, South Africa.
After several injury plagued seasons, Wales’ former World champion Stanford was all smiles as she secured a British one-two behind Holland with Hungary’s Zsanett Bragmayer rounding off the podium.
Normally Holland and Stanford probably wouldn’t be starting their race seasons this early, but as both endured frustrating 2017 campaigns beset by injuries, an early hit out was a major confidence booster.
Also both Stanford, for Wales, and Holland, for England, have another early season target in the Commonwealth Games on Australia’s Gold Coast.
The sprint distance race saw Stanford (second) and Holland (fourth) right at the sharp end of the race after the opening 750m swim, which was lead out by Bragmayer.
The British pair pushed the pace early in the ride and a group of six would pull clear and start the closing 5km run with a 50 second lead, the two Brits joined by Bragmayer, Simone Ackermann (RSA), Melanie Santos (POR) and Rani Škrabanja (NED)
Holland pulled away on the run to a clear victory. Her 16:36 split was only bettered by Ai Ueda (JPN), who managed a 16:26 to move up to tenth place during the run. Stanford took second (17:13) with swim leader Bragmayer completing the podium.
“It’s great to be back racing, especially good to do it all beside Vicky,” said Stanford afterwards.
“We were both glad to get an earlyseason race under our belts and to finish one-two as well is fantastic.”
In the men’s race while South Africa couldn’t repeat it’s podium sweep from 12 months ago, the top two positions were unchanged, with Richard Murray and Henri Schoeman filling the top two steps of the podium once again.
In typical style, Schoeman lead the way in the swim, eight seconds clear as he reached dry land, but with pretty much the entire field in a long line behind him. The early part of the ride would see the pack split however.
A group of 11 would start the run in close order, with a 20 second lead over the chasers. With Richard Murray part of that 11, he was the clear favourite to retain his title – and was not going to spoil the script. A 14:25 run split was the fastest of the day, resulting in a relatively comfortable margin of victory.
Great Britain’s Grant Sheldon got himself into a top-10 position (ninth), courtesy of the second best run split of the day, 14:37.