New Zealand has won their second medal of the Youth Olympic Games with triathlon bagging a silver medal in the exciting teams race at Singapore today.
They joined with Australia to form a potent Oceania team which came from nearly a minute behind to claim the silver medal behind Europe after early leaders Americas 1 were served a penalty with the finishing line in sight.
The race involved teams of four – two male and two female – with each completed a super-sprint format of 250m swim, 6.6km bike and 1.7km run.
It marked an outstanding few days for the 18 year old Barclay after winning the individual gold.
“I put just as much into that as my individual race. I tried to have a good crack at him with 500m to go on the run but he had more in the tank but I am extremely happy to get the silver,” Barclay said.
Barclay and Europe’s Alois Knabl began the final bike leg 15 seconds behind Americas 1 but Argentina’s Lautaro Diaz managed to extend the advantage to 24 seconds going on to the final run before the 15 second penalty proved costly.
“About halfway on the bike we just about caught the guy out in the front but I was hurting really bad. We were time trialling our gut’s out and we couldn’t quite catch him.
“I thought we were fighting for silver and bronze until someone round the back of the course yelled that this is the gold position here. As soon I heard that I had a real crack but I was already on the red line but I put the lock right round and tried my best but second was it and I am very happy with that.”
Earlier fellow kiwi team-mate Maddie Dillon had produced a huge effort on the bike to pull back a 54 second deficit to just 10 seconds and while she lost a few seconds on the run, she handed over to Barclay just 19 seconds behind the leader.
“That was pretty hard, very fast and very hard. It ended up like a non-drafting race which suits me. The deficit made it better for me because it gave me something to chase. That was awesome to get a silver medal, just fantastic.”
Asia made the early pace on the first women’s leg before both American teams took over in the second leg, opening a solid break with Oceania back by 55 seconds before Dillon brought them back into the race.
Provisional Results: Youth Olympic Games Triathlon
1. Europe 1 1:19.51
2. Oceania (Ellie Salthouse, Michael Gosman, Maddie Dillon, Aaron Barclay) 1:19.55
3. Americas 1 1:19.58
