JOHANNESBURG - Judging by South Africa’s clean sweep of the men’s race at the Cape Town ITU Triathlon World Cup, the sport in this country has a rosy outlook for the next few years.
The South African trio, spearheaded by Richard Murray, Rio Olympic bronze medallist Henri Schoeman and former world junior champion Wian Sullwald finished first, second and third respectively in the sprint event on Saturday.
Although many of the world’s top triathletes did not participate in the 750m swim, 20km cycle race and 5km run event, it was still an impressive display by the country’s top-three triathletes.
“I am very happy with how it ended up. Last year I had a broken collarbone, the year before I blew up and got fourth,” Murray said.
“It is the fourth year going at this event. It’s not a World Series event but a World Cup - but having a one, two and three on the podium for South Africa, I hope that makes a statement and it gets out there.”
It was a sweet victory for Murray, who missed last year’s Cape Town triathlon after he broke his collarbone in a crash in Australia.
The crash nearly derailed his Olympic ambitions, with the Durbanville triathlete finishing just seconds behind Schoeman at the Games.
He was nearly denied a maiden victory in his home city, after earning a a 10-second transition penalty when he failed to put his helmet in the box.
“It wasn’t the strongest field in triathlon but it was definitely a competitive one and it just goes to show it is a growing sport, and it is getting bigger and bigger,” Murray said. “We really need to get some girls, we need a one, two, three female event too to get onto the podium so I hope to see some young girls and young guys getting excited about triathlon.”
All three South Africans were in the big peloton on the cycling leg which put the trio in contention for podium finishes going into the run.
Murray took the lead in the run leg shortly after the transition with Schoeman chasing hard, while Sullwald tried to reel them in.
“When we got onto the run I was thinking, ‘ah man, I didn’t plan to run all out today, but I reckon I was pretty close and I needed to do that today,” Murray said.
“Henri was really strong today, I thought I would have had (a) bigger gap on the run than I did, but I am very happy how I ended out.”
In the women’s race, only a tenth of a second separated British winner Lucy Hall from compatriot Jessica Learmonth with Japan’s Ai Uedua of Japan finishing in third place.