Italy and USA claim Team Triathlon Gold
Source: Editor
The Italy triathlon team of Daniela Chmet, Beatrice Lanza and Nadia Cortassa has just won the women's ITU Team Triathlon World Championships. Standing atop the podium with them was the American Men's team of Brian Fleischman, Matthew Reed and Andy Potts who managed to beat out many top triathlon countries to claim the title "Top Triathlon Nation".
In the women's event, Italy was able to open a large enough gap over second place United States and third place Spain over the first two legs enabling Italian anchor Cortassa to bring home the gold medal for her country. Italy's time of 1:05:11 managed to best the United States by 52 seconds and Spain by a further minute and 11 seconds.
"It is very important for Italy, "stated Italy's second Lanza on the world championship win. "The short course is a very exciting race. We are a very close team so it is very good for our friendship."
Italy was never far off the lead for the entire "super-sprint" relay style race. The championship consisted of three legs, with each athlete completing a leg, made up of a 250 metre swim, 6.6 kilometre bike and 1,600 metre run in succession, before handing off to their teammate.
Daniela Chmet led the charge for Italy crashing through the opening 250 metre swim and heading onto the 2-lap, flat and fast bike course with America's Sarah Groff and World Junior Champion Kirsten Sweetland of Canada hot on her heels. However, it was the Canadian Sweetland that built an early lead out on the one mile run course before handing off to her teammate Lauren Groves to start the second leg of the race.
World Ranked number five Groves quickly put more time between herself and her two competitors during her leg but her effort was in vain as an absence of a third teammate meant that Canada would have to withdrawal from the race.
It was during this second leg that Italy's Lanza made the decisive move, pulling away from American Mary Beth Ellis, setting up her Italian teammate Cortassa to cruise home to victory and the lion's share of the US$50,000 prize purse.
"I have to thank Daniela and Beatrice because they made the race very easy for me," said Italian anchor Cortassa. "They worked very hard before me and I just have to not get caught."
Michelle Lindsay anchored the American team and managed to hang onto second place for the United States to claim the silver medal.
"It was tons of fun, "exclaimed American anchor Michelle Lindsay. "Hopefully this is the first of many times this team gets to race together."
Despite a slow start, Spain was able to come together during the later stages of the race to take third spot.
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In the Men's event, the three American triathletes claimed the gold medal and title of "Triathlon's strongest nation" in a time of 57:11. Fifty-two seconds down was the second place Germany with Canada rounding out the podium a further 37 seconds back.
"The dynamics are so different in a short distance race like this and the key is to make no mistakes", remarked American anchor Potts. "And today we made no mistakes."
The U.S. team never fell below third spot in the "super-sprint" relay style championship. The race consisted of three legs, with each athlete completing a leg, made up of a 250 metre swim, 6.6 kilometre bike and 1,600 metre run in succession, before handing off to their teammate.
The first leg lined up for the starters horn with Fleischman, German's Jan Frodeno and Spain's Javier Gomez exiting the water only second ahead of Canadian Kyle Jones. Jones managed to catch on early in the bike leaving the first leg to the run. Frodeno, as well as the entire German team, completed the entire bike leg already in his runners, giving him a slight advantage into second transition which proved to be useful as he left transition two with a 10 second lead.
"A lot gets decided in transition," stated German second Daniel Unger. "We tried to get a bit of an advantage in T2 [with the shoes] but it did affect the bike a little. I think it was the right decision though."
Heading into the exchange area and onto leg two it was Frodeno, who held his lead, coming in first, followed by Gomez, Fleischmann and Jones only seconds behind.
As the wind picked up and the surf roughened, the order did not change through the second leg swim but the tall America Reed made his move early in the bike, catching Germany's Daniel Unger and powering through onto the run where his lead increased to almost a minute over Unger. Just behind was a fast approaching Canada and Spain, neck in neck.
"I love the short stuff and when I caught Daniel [Unger] I wanted to make him hurt." Exclaimed Reed.
Onto the third leg there was no doubt who would finish first-second but there was a battle brewing for third. Canada's Paul Tichelaar was able to power away from Spain's world champion Ivan Raña on the bike putting a decisive 20 second gap between himself and the Spaniard.
"I knew I had my hands full with Ivan [Raña]," said Canadian anchor Tichelaar. "I knew I had to put a gap on him in the bike. I just put my head down and went."
Onto the run Tichelaar continued to push the pace and despite taking a wrong turn only metres from the finish, was able to cross the line in time and claim the final podium spot for Canada.
Spain finished in fourth with a young Hungarian team rounding out the top five.
2006 ITU Team Triathlon World Championships Results – Elite Women
1. ITALY (Daniela Chmet, Beatrice Lanza, Nadia Cortassa) 1:05:11
2. USA (Sarah Groff, Mary Beth Ellis, Michelle Lindsay) 1:06:03
3. SPAIN (Ana Burgos, Zurine Rodriguez, Ainhoa Murua) 1:07:14
4. HUNGARY (Zita Szabo, Margit Vanek, Zsofia Kovacs) 1:08:12
5. MEXICO (Adriana Corona, Melody Ramirez, Dunia Gomez) 1:08:48
2006 ITU Team Triathlon World Championships Results– Elite Men
1. USA (Brian Fleischmann, Matt Reed, Andy Potts) 57:11
2. GERMANY (Jan Frodeno, Daniel Unger, Maik Petzold) 58:03
3. CANADA (Kyle Jones, Colin Jenkins, Paul Tichelaar) 58:40
4. SPAIN (Javier Gomez, Jose Tovar, Ivan Raña) 58:54
5. HUNGARY (Csaba Kuttor, Tamas Liptak, Daniel Torok) 1:00:44
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