Palmerston North’s Kris Gemmell continued his good recent form, backing up his Oceania Triathlon title over the standard distance with a victory at the Singapore 70.3 over the half ironman distance late yesterday (NZT).
Gemmell came out on top of a strong men's field that featured Pete Jacobs (AUS), James Cunnama (SAF) and Fairs al Sultan (GER) as he took on the event as part of his preparation for a busy 2011 that will see him try to qualify for the 2012 London Olympic Games in August.
Gemmell was typically upbeat about his performance.
"This is awesome to get a win in my first start at this distance. It was so hot and humid though, really hard work but an awesome race. And no relaxing for a start time in the afternoon as with my ITU races, we were up before the sun!"
Gemmell led out of the water, no surprise for the Kiwi, he led David Dellow (AUS) and David Halksworth (GBR) by just seconds, with the first seven men all in close proximity and under 28 minutes for the 1.9km swim.
It was a slightly more conservative approach on the bike from Gemmell in his debut 70.3 race, however his 2:05:30 split for the 90km was good enough to have him comfortably in third heading out on to the run and that is when the 30 year old turned up the heat on his rivals.
Gemmell was in the lead before the halfway point on the run leg as he impressed onlookers with his pace management and fitness in his first tilt at the distance. Gemmell ran 1:13:40 for the half marathon (21km) to win in an overall time of 3:50:56, almost a minute ahead of Cunnama with Jacobs a further 2 and a half minutes back in third.
Results: Singapore 70.3 Half-Ironman
1.9km swim, 90km bike, 21km run
Pro Men
1 Kris Gemmell (Palmerston North, New Zealand) – 3:50:56
2 James Cunnama (Port Elizabeth, South Africa) – 3:51:45
3 Peter Jacobs (Sydney, Australia) – 3:54:25
4 Patrick Vernay (France) – 3:55:50
5 Faris al Sultan (Germany) – 3:56:13
6 Hideo Fukui (Japan) – 3:56:32
7 Christian Kemp (Australia) – 3:57:00
8 Scott Neyedli (Aberdeen, Scotland) – 3:58:25
9 David Dellow (Australia) – 4:00:08
10 Daniel Halksworth (Jersey, Great Britain) – 4:04:06
