Teenage Auckland triathlete Michael Poole will have gained valuable experience but quickly found out the improvements needed to compete at the top level as he failed to finish the ITU World Cup in Ishigaki tonight after giving his all in an outstanding bike leg, albeit one that saw him pay the ultimate price as he failed to reach the finish line.
Poole was off the pace during the swim, exiting the 1500m first leg of the third World Cup race of the season in 29th place, some 82 seconds down on leader Clayton Fettell (Australia), subsequently missing the lead group out on to the 40km bike.
From that point it was a case of Poole showing his strength on the bike, with few other triathletes around him to work with it was largely a lone ranger effort from the 18 year old as he battled to close the gap to the lead group in the humid conditions at Ishigaki. But battle he did as the time gap slowly but surely came down on the chase group, albeit Fettell had by now gone solo, establishing a commanding lead with two laps to go on the bike.
Poole though incredibly made contact with the main group as his group of six triathletes worked superbly, helped no doubt by the presence of three Japanese competitors urged on by a partisan home crowd. Poole's 1:03:44 bike time was the 5th quickest in the field as he put himself back in touch with the main chase group.
The effort on the bike clearly took a toll on the young Aucklander though, and he was unable to finish the event, pulling out early in the run leg in the energy sapping conditions with no further details available from Japan immediately after the race concluded. But as one of the youngest in the sport at the elite level, Poole will no doubt clock this up to experience and look to improve in all aspects of his performance as the season continues.
Fettell too paid a price but not nearly as high as Poole, the Aussie fading on the run to finish fifth as Russian Valentin Meshcheryakov took the victory by a narrow margin from home favourites Yuichi Hosoda and Ryosuke Yamamoto.
ITU Triathlon World Cup, Ishigaki, Japan
Elite Men
1 Valentin Meshcheryakov RUS 1:54:02
2 Yuichi Hosoda JPN 1:54:07
3 Ryosuke Yamamoto JPN 1:54:19
4 David Dellow AUS 1:54:43
5 Clayton Fettell AUS 1:54:47
