By Kent Gray/Triathlon.kiwi
The rise and rise of Brea Roderick continues apace with the Cantabrian celebrating the biggest win of her career in Morocco overnight.
A fortnight after her memorable World Triathlon Championship Series (WTCS) debut in Montreal, Roderick has won Africa Premier Cup Larache in a canter despite a hiccup in the swim.
The 21-year-old knocked off the sprint in 1:03:37 to win by 31 seconds from Ireland’s Erin McConnell. Australian Tara Sosinski rounded out the podium, 10 seconds ahead of Kiwi Eva Goodisson (1:04:31) who produced the best result in her comeback from a back injury.
Hannah Howell was 16th in 1:09:51 while Austin Carter headlined the Kiwi males in Morocco finishing 13th in 58:02. Lachlan Haycock was 23rd in 59:48 with Christian Davey 29th in 1:02:03 in another encouraging step up levels.
But the day belonged to Roderick who overcame a near 30-second deficit out of the water with a powerful bike-run retort. Her 18:14 split for the 5km run was the second fastest of the day and left New Zealand celebrating a second Conti Cup victory in as many weeks after Janus Staufenberg’s European Premier Cup Holten triumph.
“I had a good start to the swim and got on leaders’ feet. I’m unsure what went wrong at the first buoy but I started to fade and lost the leaders feet so was a wee way back out of the swim,” Roderick told Triathlon.kiwi.
“I then just put my head down and worked hard on the bike trying to catch those in front of me one by one and eventually ended up In a group of four. We worked well lapping through and I went out onto the run relaxed, started conservatively and built it up.
“It’s the best I’ve felt running in a race so far this campaign so that was a good positive. Overall very stoked to have taken the win.”
Roderick now transfers to Germany for this week’s WTCS Hamburg which doubles as the World Triathlon Sprint & Relay Championships. She’ll race the elite women’s sprint with Nicole van der Kaay, Ainsley Thorpe and Olivia Thornbury and has been named in both the senior and U23/Junior relay squads. Whether she’ll race the senior relay remains to be seen after she was named to anchor the top quartet at WTCS Montreal, only for the relay to be cancelled due to poor air quality due to the Quebec wildfires.
It came after Roderick placed 34th on debut in the earlier Montreal sprint.
“This is a first elite international win for me so it’s a good confidence boost heading into Hamburg next week for the super sprint world champs.”
Indeed.
There was also a big NZL result at Americas Triathlon Cup Montreal with Olivia Cummings 11th in 59:53 earlier on Sunday. Bermuda’s Erica Hawley won in 58:15 with fellow Kiwis Anna Lindsay (1:01:33), Madison Keightley (1:01:37) and Amara Rae (1:02:49) finishing 18th, 19th and 26th respectively.
