Gwen Jorgensen and Richard Murray take victories at the 2016 New Plymouth ITU Triathlon World Cup

The second round of the ITU World Cup circuit threw up another round of outstanding sprint racing which saw Richard Murray (RSA) repeat and Gwen Jorgensen (USA) continue her unbeaten run.

Both have had confident starts to the 2016 season and Rio Olympic build up and  today executed perfectly timed performances to claim wins at New Plymouth.

Women’s Review

The American megastar Gwen Jorgensen continued her domination on top of the podium with another impressive performance, winning the 2016 ITU World Cup in New Plymouth and getting her racing season and Olympic build up off to a confident start.

New Zealand’s Andrea Hewitt chose a home race in New Plymouth to get her season 2016 under way and what a performance taking second place. Kirsten Kasper (USA) again featured on the podium with a bronze.

I have been in New Plymouth for a couple weeks now because my coach is originally from here and it has been great, the community has been so welcoming. I have loved being here, Jorgensen said.

I came here, there was a lot of good and tough athletes, a lot of fast swimmers so it was a good test. We were really pushing it on the swim, the bike and the run, so it was a really hard race.

Next week I will start my WTS debut I guess for 2016 in Gold Coast, but the sole focus for me in August 20th, the Rio Olympics, so all of this has just been kind of training for that.

2016 New Plymouth ITU Triathlon World Cup – Elite Women – (Sprint – 750m, 20km, 5km)

Men’s Review

New Plymouth has proven a happy hunting ground for South Africa’s Richard Murray, defending his ITU World Cup title in a blockbuster race that went down to the wire.

It has been another positive start to 2016 for Murray, which is almost a mirror image to 2015, opening his Olympic campaign with a silver medal at the WTS Abu Dhabi season opener, and backing it up with an impressive performance over a world class field in the same location that brought him his first-ever World Cup victory just last year.

In a race that was full gas from the gun and never slowed down until the end, the experienced campaigner was able to capture his back-to-back New Plymouth title.

Yeah it was a better swim than last year, I never know where I am so I look around and saw like ten guys in front of me.   It was a really, really good swim, hard bike course, I tried to get away with the two other guys in our group, it didn’t happen but all round it was a great race and the weather turned our great for today, said Murray on his winning performance. “I wasn’t sure how far they were away but when I came in I saw that they had left transition, I wouldn’t say I was completely concerned but definitely had to make sure I ran the first bit a little bit quick to make sure. I managed to get them half way or  ¾ of the way through the run at least.

Joining Murray on the podium was Andreas Schilling (DEN) with the silver and Rostylav Pevtsov (AZE) with the bronze.

2016 New Plymouth ITU Triathlon World Cup – Elite Men – (Sprint – 750m, 20km, 5km)