Photos: World Triathlon
By Kent Gray/Triathlon.kiwi in Paris
Dylan McCullough can’t wait for the day the stars align and he can have a proper crack at a mixed relay.
The Cambridge-based Aucklander, 22, finally made his senior debut as New Zealand finished 13th in Sunday’s Paris Olympic test event. Sadly it was all a bit flat given the race was reduced to a duathlon due to unsafe water samples taken from the River Seine earlier in the morning.
That robbed the swim-strong Kiwi quartet of Tayler Reid, Nicole van der Kaay, McCullough and Brea Roderick of a combined weapon that would likely have seen them finish higher on the evidence of previous WTCS relays.
McCullough at least got to savour his debut and a lap and a half hanging onto the shoulder of Brit Alex Yee. It just would have been so much sweeter if there had been a swim instead of the 1.35km run (900m for lead out Reid), 5.8km bike, 1.8km run.
“Yeah, it’s a bit frustrating, my one relay chance overseas this year and it was a duathlon…it’s a bit unfortunate but we all gave it our all and made the most of the opportunity,” McCullough told Triathlon.kiwi.
“I think we’re all strong swimmers in the team so that suits us a lot more than a duathlon but we showed today that we can still be competitive whatever the scenario is. So I think we can be happy but yeah, obviously we’d love a triathlon next time.”
France led, and comfortably so, for much of Sunday’s relay but eventually slid to 4th. Germany took gold, out sprinting Great Britain in a thriller with Belgium third.
Reid tagged van der Kaay in 13th place after a fast opening leg set the tone. Van der Kaay used her noted run to drag New Zealand up to 7th before McCullough tagged Roderick in 8th, finishing just behind Yee who had won the individual men’s race on Friday.
Roderick, 21, then brought New Zealand home in just her second senior start. Indeed, with a pair of U23s in their line-up given Hayden Wilde’s injury-enforced absence and the decision to rest Ainsley Thorpe, the Kiwis’ effort was encouraging.
“It was a quick first run, solid bike and a quick second run so I was pretty happy to put together a solid all round performance in the run-bike-run and hang on to Alex Yee for a bit on the second run for one and a half laps, yeah, so proud of my performance and team’s performance,” McCullough said.
