Peter Robertson’s Gamagori Memories inspire Australian Talent Academy Young Guns

Triathlon Australia’s National Talent Academy “Young Guns” won’t have to look too far for inspiration when they line up in Sunday’s ITU Triathlon Asian Cup in Gamagori.

It was in 2005 in the picturesque Japanese coastal city of on Mikawa Bay that one of the legends of Australian triathlon, Peter Robertson created history when he won the last of his three World Championships.

After victories in Edmonton and Queenstown in 2001 and 2003 “Robbo” stuck to his two-year cycle to dig deep again and take a third and deserving world championship victory.

Now seven years on Robertson, 36, is one of several coaches on the NTA Young Guns tour in charge of an exciting new generation of Australian triathlon stars.

Melbourne-based Robertson has been appointed along with the likes of Craig Walton, Chris Lang and Keiran Barry to steer an exciting group of youngsters who have already made a big impression.

Queensland’s Sarah Deuble, who is coached by Dan Atkins, has already chalked up two wins from two starts in the Mooloolaba Oceania Cup and at last Sunday’s ITU Triathlon Asian Cup race in Amakusa and is looking for a third.

“I’m really enjoying my first experience with the Japanese races, Deuble said. Obviously Amakusa was great fun, winning the race there. I hope I can continue to race well again this weekend in Gamagori.”

Deuble was 20 seconds behind in the swim and then went on to dominate the bike and run.

Sydney’s Bree Jones had a great start and lead to the first turning buoy but was forced wide and wasn’t aggressive enough to hold position so lost time to the lead three Japanese athletes. A four-women second pack lead by Jones and included Kirralee Pride with Deuble was further 20 seconds behind and out by herself.

Onto the bike the Japanese trio tried to form a lead while the group formed behind and included all three Aussie girls. They were caught at the 15km mark.

The group completed the bike together with Deuble making a very smart, very sneaky move at the end, finishing the bike about 100m off the front, the bike course finished with a moderately steep downhill with a shallow turn mid-way through.

She positioned herself on the front for the dismount line but the Asian athletes all braked for the downhill and Sarah managed to roll off the front.

Deuble then built a lead from there and raced out of sight, finishing 1min clear of Japanese pair Kirra and Sato who ran together until the last kilometre where Kirra managed to get a small break on the last small rise before the finish.

On the last hill of the bike I managed to break away from everyone and had about a handy lead on the field going down the hill but then I didn’t realise that the dismount line was so close so when I got to the line I had to fully slam on my breaks to not go over it as I still had to get one of my feet out, Deuble said.

By the time I did this the main pack had all caught me so I was a little disappointed about that but I still managed to be third out of transition onto the run.

Then on the run I started off at a nice comfortable pace and just eased into the first 1km and then at about the 2km mark which was this long gradual hill I pulled away.

From then on I led the whole way although I started to struggle at about the 8km mark with a really bad stitch.

Over the last 2km I just tried to push through the pain as best I could and finally at about 500m to go the pain finally subsided and I was able to finish strongly.

“Overall I was really happy with how I raced, I was just annoyed at my dismount but apart from that everything else ran smoothly.

“My transitions were nice and fast so hopefully coach Dan Atkins will be pleased with that.”

Mitch Keally wins Bronze in the Men’s race

In the men’s race it was Shane Barry and Taylor Cecil who led out of water with a five to seven second lead to a group of men including former Commonwealth Games athlete Mitch Kealy (who would go on to finish third) Marcel Walkington, Kenji Nener and Kane Simpson.

Michael Gosman was a further 10sec back with another Japanese athlete. Sam Speachley was 1.10min down on the leaders.

On the mount line Kim (Korea) ran into the back of Walkington who broke his rear derailleur resulting in a DNF.

This group formed a lead pack of 12 men on the bike that worked well together to build a 2 min plus gap on the chasers.

Onto the run a lead group of 10 formed straight away with Michael Gosman falling off the pace out of transition.

Mitch, Taylor and Shane ran at the front until the 4km mark where Svarc (CZE) and Goldsmith (NZL) formed a small break on the steep downhill.

Goldsmith built a strong lead from there and looked well in control from the 8km mark and was never headed.

Svarc built a small lead but that was cut in the last 1km as Mitch and Taylor finished strongly dropping Shane over the last rise on the course a bridge with 1km to go.

Svarc held on while Kealy and Taylor had a sprint finish for 3^rd (the race finished on a tartan track for the final 300m) with Barry fifth, Shaw sixth and Nenner seventh and Simpson ninth giving Australia six of the top ten.

As for Robertson he can’t wait to get back to the Gamagori course with so many great memories.

“After winning the world champs in 2005 in Gamagori I can’t wait to return this time to watch and support the young guns from Australia!” said the duel Olympian.

The Japanese always put on great events and I sure Gamagori will once again be exciting racing. A little less painful for me this time around though!”