O’grady shows his class
Graham O’Grady and Gina Crawford raced home winners at the Port of Tauranga Half at The Mount yesterday, O’Grady announcing himself as a world-class athlete over the half distance in equalling the race record while defeating former world champion Terenzo Bozzone and nine times winner Cameron Brown.
Conditions were near-perfect at the hot holiday spot, but for the winds that troubled athletes on the swim and bike legs, in a race played out in front of a huge crowd of triathlon fans and sunsoaked holidaymakers enjoying a great day for the 24th running of this event, which doubles as the Tri NZ National Long Distance Championships.
O’Grady led out of the water after an impressive swim, clocking 22 minutes and 35 seconds for the 1.9km in Pilot Bay. Chasing hard were Callum Millward and Bozzone some 46 seconds back, with Brown in the third group, 2min 34sec behind O’Grady.
Positions stayed largely the same on the 90km bike leg, with O’Grady extending his lead on the chasers to head out on to the run with a handy but not insurmountable lead of 1min 14sec over a chasing trio of James Bowstead (the big mover on the bike with a fastest 2:06:38 split), Callum Millward and Bozzone.
Bozzone lost vital seconds when he had to retreat 12 metres to pick up a stray bike shoe.
By the halfway point it was down to two, with Bozzone and O’Grady running side by side.
O’Grady made his move on the second lap around the base of The Mount to break the former 70.3 world champion and head to the finish and a share of the race record of 3:47:54 set by Nathan Richmond in 2006.
‘‘I had a great swim and rode strongly and looked to make a move at about the 30km to go mark knowing that sometimes a chase group can back off a little thinking of each other and the run and that is the way it played out,’’ he said.
‘‘It is always nice to have a buffer and settle into your own rhythm. I knew that Terenzo and Callum would be coming at me fast and sure enough Terenzo ran really well over that first 5km.
‘‘I was a bit hesitant to go with him but my coach Keegan [Williams] gave me an earful when I went past him heading into the mountain so I worked hard, stuck there and believed in myself.’’
The win is all the sweeter for 30-year-old O’Grady, one of the nicest athletes in the sport, after he had his title stripped two years ago for a failed drugs test – O’Grady was subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing after poppy seeds were found to be the cause of traces of morphine and was not suspended – and then injury ruled him out last year.
‘‘I have had great races every now and then and known the potential is there but this result is pretty special and will give me confidence, especially against such a class field with Terenzo and Cameron. They are the best in the world.
‘‘Hopefully I can keep this roll going through the year and race well at the world championships.’’
Both Brown and Bozzone were gracious in defeat, Bozzone embracing his wife at the finish line after his wedding last week.
‘‘That was fast from the word go, a disappointing swim by my standards but was then trying to minimise what I could on the bike, but the boys rode real well today and Graham put a superb race together to get a deserved win,’’ Bozzone said.
In the women’s race it was as expected a close battle out of the water between Jo Lawn and Gina Crawford.
The two exited almost side by side from Pilot Bay with Crawford clocking 26min 33sec, 7 seconds ahead of four-time champion Lawn.
But that was the last time Crawford was challenged as the 32-year-old rode and then ran away from the field, leaving Lawn in a battle with Candice Hammond for the minor placings. Hammond prevailed thanks largely to a 1:22:11 run split, the quickest of the elite women.
Crawford was imperious as she clocked up a great day’s work in preparation for Challenge Wanaka in two weeks’ time, crossing the line looking as if she had been on a training exercise, and even finding time to collect baby son Benji on the way.
‘‘I didn’t feel tired, I felt really good which is a good sign I think. I tried to go up another gear but my strength is the ironman pace and the fact I can hold that pace. For years I have done under nine hours in the ironman but struggled to go under four-and-a-half hours in the half, which is really weird, but lately I have started to enjoy the shorter distance a little more.
‘‘I have always struggled on the flat courses but I enjoyed the bike today, I am more aerodynamic than ever before.’’
A total of 1335 athletes took part during the day, with those eligible chasing Triathlon NZ national long-distance age-group titles in five-year age categories.