World Triathlon

With a $232,000.00us total prize purse up for grabs this weekend, the winners have the possibility of taking home over $40,000us if they win the event, and the 2005 overall World Cup Champion title.  Add to this the 7 primés on the swim, bike and run course, and it could make the day’s haul the richest in ITU’s 16 year history.

For the women Emma Snowsill (the current World Champion) and Annabel Luxford (both of Australia) are the only ones who have the possibility of taking it all home.  Luxford currently has a 65 point lead over Snowsill, who will have to win the event with Luxford no better than 10th if she is to take home the top prize. 

Vanessa Fernandes, the young Portuguese tri-star has 3 World Cup titles in 2005 to her credit; Mazatlan, Madrid and Beijing, but with points from only 4 races going into the New Plymouth finalé, the best she can finish overall is 2nd.  To do that she would need to win the event and Snowsill would have to finish well back.

Other women who could finish in the top 3 final World Cup rankings and take home a share of the $100,000us bonus pool include hometown favourite Samantha Warriner, Kiyomi Niwata of Japan, British team-mates Andrea Whitcombe and Liz Blatchford, and Laura Bennett of the USA.

There are 4 men in contention for the World Cup overall title, including world ranked #1 Hunter Kemper of the USA, #2 ranked Tim Don of Great Britain, #3 ranked Brad Kahlefelt and #5 ranked Courtney Atkinson both of Australia.

Kemper is the odds on favourite to take the overall crown, with Tim Don the one most likely to knock him off the top.  Don needs to win the event, with Kemper placing no higher than 7th to take the most prestigious annual crown in the sport, and the undisputed “best triathlete in the world in 2005”. 

Strong finishes in Sunday’s ITU World Cup finale could also put Matt Reed of the USA into the bonus pool money, but the other four at the top would have to falter.

To review
the list of all the possibilities in the final standings, created for us by Enrique
Quesada, ITU’s ‘Mr. Stats”, please click here

Live coverage from New Plymouth will include Live Video as well as results, photos and text - it all begins at noon local time on Sunday November 13:
10:00 – Sydney
07:00 – Beijing
08:00 – Tokyo
00:00 – Madrid

Saturday 12 November
23:00 – London
17:00 – Chicago
18:00 - New York
15:00 – Vancouver

High resolution photos from the event, courtesy of the award-winning sports photographer, Delly Carr, will be available immediately after the finish.

For further information and finish line interviews please contact: Sheila O’Kelly, Director of ITU World Cup +64. 27 25 39 447 (New Zealand) or +1778 998 9248 (International)

The ITU World Cup Series is a 16 race series contested by the leading Olympic distance triathletes in the world.  All events are contested over the Olympic distance of 1.5km swim, 40km cycle and 10km run.  For more information about ITU Events please contact: ituhdq@triathlon.org