Oceania Triathlon

The ITU Tokyo Asian Cup Triathlon took place on Sunday, 23 October.
The event was also the 11th Japanese Triathlon Championships to be held in Tokyo Metropolis Odaiba.The women started at 8:10 a.m. as Akane Furuya led the field through the swim to finish in 19 minutes 33 seconds. Ten athletes, including Shizuka Kutsuna, Keiko Tanaka, Akiko Sekine, Misato Takagi, Machiko Nakanishi and Kiyomi Niwata formed the lead group on bike segment. Sekine, Niwata and Nakanishi were the first through the bike to run transition, and they quickly escaped from the rest of the group. Niwata moved to the front with Sekine, and the pair ran together until .Niwata moved to the front at end of the second lap. Niwata won her second Japan Championships, and said, “On the second lap of the run, Sekine slowed down a little and I was able to run away from her.” The men’s event started at 10:30 a.m. Hirokatsu Tayama led through the swim segment holding off Tsukasa Hirano and one of Spain top athletes Raul Cordoba, with Yuichi Hosoda, Ryosuke Yamamoto, Junichi Yamamoto close behind. During the bike segment Hosoda, Junichi, Ryosuke, Hirano and Tayama worked effectively together pulling away from the rest of the field.

By the end of the bike the leaders had a 2 minutes 25 seconds lead on the rest of the field, with Tayama first onto the 10km run.. Hirano was not able to catch Tayama until the third lap of the run when Tayama slowed enough to give Hirano the break he needed to take the championship title. Cordoba was the eighth prize. Joel Cook (Australia) was the 16th prize.


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