Noosa Triathlon Elite Race Snapshot

Tomorrow’s Noosa Triathlon as always is hard to pick. There are a few men and women who are usual long course triathletes that could swim and bike their way in to a solid position at the start of the run.

In the men’s race Jacob Birtwhistle would have to be the short priced favourite. However based on his race last weekend at Nepean he could require a couple of strong cyclists to be in his swim pack to get himself in to a good position off the bike. Last weekend Matthew Pellow’s strong bike leg was the catalyst to Birtwhistle being in touch off the bike. With Royle out of the race it opens the field up. Royle’s power on the bike over this distance is hard to beat.

Last weekend at Nepean Birtwhistle, Brendan Sexton and Ryan Fisher all ran low 31mins and if any of these guys are in touch off the bike then they will be very hard to beat.

Pete Jacobs, Clayton Fettell, Brad Kahlefeldt, Sam Betten, Ben Shaw and Matt Baker, Peter Kerr, Ryan Fisher will all be amongst the swim leaders and the pace on the bike will need to be on from the start to prevent the chase swimmers bridging the gap and bringing the field together. With a bigger lead pack this means the likelihood of the chasing swimmer hanging on will be stronger. We could see a long line of men stream out through T1.

Brendan Sexton has had a week on the new TT now so he should be more in tune with it and we would expect to see an improvement in the bike leg.

The Women

In the women’s race it will hard to go past Emma Moffatt and Ashleigh Gentle to take this race out. Last weekend Gentle and a bout of vertigo on the run while leading with only a few kms to go. Hopefully we won’t see a repeat of this tomorrow.

Danielle De Fransesco should lead the women’s field out of the water. De Fransesco is relatively new to triathlon and is slowly building up her bike and run legs. But with her killer open water swim background she will always have herself in a position to capitalise on and enable her to get stronger each race as she stays with the faster bike/runners for longer each time.

Caroline Steffen and Melissa Hauscildt are the last long course females to win this race in 2010 and 2011. Caroline is racing tomorrow and would be hoping to use her bike strength to put herself in to a position to claim win number 2. Steffen was only seconds off Gentle in the swim last year and put in a solid run off the bike to claim 3rd.

Radka Vodickova has always had a good swim/run combo and with her bike strength building from all the long course training and racing