A young New Zealand team took out the ITU Oceania Mixed Team Relay Triathlon title at Kinloch today, backing up after a recent win in Penrith at a round of the Australian Junior Series in January.
Dan Hoy (15 years, Auckland), Tayler Reid (17, Gisborne), Jaimee Leader (16, Palmerston North) and Nicole van der Kaay (17, Taupo) won the event on a brilliantly fine day at Kinloch on day two of the latest round of the .kiwi Tri Series.
 Dan Hoy, Tayler Reid, Jaimee Leader and Nicole van der Kaay won the ITU Oceania Mixed Team Relay Triathlon(Photo: Triathlon NZ; click to enlarge) |
Martin van Barneveld, Tom Davison, Maddie Dillon and Samantha Kingsford came home in second and the silver medal while Bryce McMaster, Penny Hayes, Rebecca Clarke and Sam Osborne finished third and in the bronze medal position.
van der Kaay led the team away, coming in as a late replacement for Lizzie Stannard who was ill with Reid second, Leader third and Hoy playing the part of anchorman as each competitor completed a super sprint triathlon (300m swim, 6km bike, 1.6km run) before tagging their team mate.
The youngsters were in the mix but not in the lead until Jaimee Leader made her move on the third leg, first swimming up to the leaders and then riding away from Rebecca Clarke and Samantha Kingsford, handing over to Dan Hoy with a lead of just over 30 seconds.
Tri NZ National Development Coach Tim Brazier was delighted with the way the young New Zealand team executed their race plans.
"This was an opportunity to build on the culture within the National Talent Squad. Practicing the execution of the race in this environment is invaluable to these athletes and they did a great job, both yesterday in the individual races and today in the teams just caps it off.
"There is an ITU U19 world championships team race this year in Edmonton so again, this is planning towards that and developing both the culture and building on the experience in this group. That was a great performance today by Nicole, Tayler, Jaimee and Dan and a good weekend overall for the majority of the athletes."
Tayler Reid had a smile a mile wide after the race and couldn't hide his enjoyment.
"That was so cool and so much fun when it gets close like that. It is so different, it is so much faster and I like it so much more than individual racing because of the team aspect is so cool, you don't want to let a team down so you go so much harder."
Jaimee Leader was superb through transition, making up time out of the water and then extending her lead off the bike and on to the run.
"It is such a short race, you have no time to muck around, you want to get in quick and get out really fast. I felt good, I thought I might be a little fatigued but everyone does so you just have to put in that extra effort and I managed to come away with a good lead so it was great."
Nicole van der Kaay was called in to the team the night before, with Lizzie Stannard falling ill. The Taupo triathlete made the most of her chance.
"That was great fun, great to be out there with the big guys and be up there in the race, it was awesome. Being shorter in distance is almost harder, you are not used to the quick pace and have to sprint every discipline."
Dan Hoy admitted he was worried about the chase as he set out on the bike.
"On the bike I was a bit worried, Marty rode well yesterday and dropped us going down the climb and I wanted to stay away, he ran faster than me yesterday too but I managed to keep the lead and hang on at the end.
"The team building is great, Nicole took Lizzie's place today and it was just the same as Penrith, we established a lead halfway through and managed to hold on, it was great."
