Triathlon champs win again

Richard Murray and Katie Zaferes crowned themselves King and Queen of New Plymouth, taking out the ITU Triathlon World Cup in front of big crowds that braved damp conditions at Ngamotu Beach yesterday.

Murray, of South Africa, claimed his third straight title in New Plymouth, despite coming into the race with a slight concern over an ankle injury.

Zaferes has also won back to back — the last time the American was here and victorious was 2014 and she won again yesterday, showing too much strength to kick one second clear of a large group of runners over the final few hundred metres.

Murray emerged at the front of the pack early on the run, and from that point was never headed, holding off impressive young American Matt McElroy and local Ryan Sissons, who had the crowd roaring their delight as he sprinted to the line and the bronze medal after finishing an agonising fourth last year.

“I think at the start of the day, if you said that I would ‘ threepeat’, I would say ‘not possible’,” said Murray.

“I was the last one running into the swim, I had to go real slow and was a bit cautious but then had a good swim, out on the outside.”

Zaferes was in a tight tussle with a large group once on the run, eventually going clear of Canadian Joanna Brown, who won her first World Cup medal, and Belgian Claire Michel.

Leading New Zealand hope Andrea Hewitt didn’t fire on the day, struggling with the cold during the swim and was not able to close the gap to the lead group on the bike, eventually finishing 20th.

“I pushed as hard as I could but just didn’t have the legs to do so, my muscles felt frozen,” said Hewitt. “It was great for the other Kiwis to be up in the lead bunch but [yesterday] just wasn’t my day.”