| Canada’s Simon Whitfield Kicks off World Championship Series with Top-15 Finish |
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Whitfield places fourteenth, Kyle Jones runs into nineteenth spot, while Brent McMahon finishes twenty-second. TONGYEONG, South Korea (May 3, 2009)—Simon Whitfield led a trio of Canadian men with a fourteenth-place finish in the first-ever World Championship Series triathlon race in Tongyeong, South Korea, on Sunday. The Victoria native, who will turn thirty-four in two weeks, was content with a self-described typical opening race of the season where he clocked a time of one hour fifty-one minutes, seventeen seconds (1:51:17). “I have to admit that it went very much as I expected,” said Whitfield. “It’s early in the year, and having not raced since the Olympics last season I had moderate expectations. The post-Olympic year is always hard, especially the first couple of races. I came here to get back into the swing of racing and the craziness of the first lap of the swim.” The madness began when Whitfield lined up on the left side of the pontoon alongside Bevan Docherty for the wetsuit swim. Despite swimming fairly unscathed in the opening lap of the 1.5-kilometre journey in the water, the two-time Olympic medallist was stuck in the middle of the pack, and managed to enter the transition zone in eighteenth spot. Following an average stint on the bike, which had a two-man breakaway, Whitfield had a stronger transition into the run, but was not able to adapt to the speed of the top-sixty-nine athletes in the world competing in the opening stage of the seven-race World Championship Series that will travel the globe throughout the summer. “I felt like a one-speed wonder out there today,” said Whitfield, who is competing in his fourteenth season on Canada’s Team Teck senior squad. “The sharpness and ability to accelerate and respond comes with race-specific fitness, which I didn’t have today. It is okay, though, because I’ll take my lumps and suck up the pride now so that I’m ready to peak in September.” Another two-time Olympic medallist, Bevan Docherty of New Zealand, out-sprinted Australia’s Brad Kahlefeldt to win the South Korea stop of the World Championship Series. The two bolted down the finishing stretch side-by-side, but it was the Kiwi Docherty’s final lunge of his chest across the line that won him the gold medal in a photo finish. Docherty and Kahlefeldt were deadlocked at 1:50:25. Russia’s Dmitry Polyansky rounded out the podium after setting the bronze-medal winning time at 1:50:30. Two other Canadian men also hit the start line on Sunday. Kyle Jones, of Oakville, Ontario, struggled to find his rhythm after a ninth-place finish at last weekend’s World Cup race in Japan. The twenty-four-year-old finished in nineteenth spot with a time of 1:51:49. Brent McMahon, of Victoria, crossed the line in twenty-second spot after stopping the clock at 1:51:53. The World Championship Series now heads to Madrid, Spain, for the second stage, which will be contested on May 31, 2009. |
