Posted: November 9, 2005

Multisport: Triathlon World Cup Finale in New Plymouth, NZ 13 November

New Plymouth, New Zealand, 8 November, 2005: The best ITU Triathlon World Cup season ever will draw to a close this coming weekend with the series finale in New Plymouth, New Zealand.

With almost a quarter of a million dollars up for grabs, the event will definitely be a head to head battle of the world's best in both the men’s and women’s triathlon races.

The 2 lap, 1500m swim and the transition areas are located at Ngamotu Beach, with the 6 lap, 40km bike segment and 5 lap run segment passing right through the “triathlon stadium” on each lap.

The ones to watch amongst the strong women’s field are the current #1 and #2 ranked athletes Annabel Luxford and Emma Snowsill of Australia. Snowsill is also the reigning World Champion. Vanessa Fernandes of Portugal who has won 3 World Cup events this year (Madrid, Mazatlan and Beijing) will also be a strong contender for the win.

Local fans will have lots to cheer about with Samantha Warriner on the start. She will be looking to add a hometown win to the World Cup titles she won earlier in the year at events in Ishigaki and Hamburg. Other top 10 ranked women to watch for are: British team-mates Michelle Dillon and Andrea Whitcombe, along with Kyomi Niwata of Japan and Laura Bennett of the USA.

In the men’s event, Hunter Kemper of the USA (ranked #1) and Tim Don of Great Britain (ranked #2), and Brad Kahlefeldt of Australia (ranked #3) are in a fascinating battle for the year’s overall #1 World Ranking. The three men are in perfect form heading into the final event. Other top 10 ranked men to watch for are Courtney Atkinson of Australia and Matt Reed of the USA. Rasmus Henning, former World Cup and European Champion, is back in good form after a string of injuries, and could be the dark horse in the event.

Following on the massive success of the live video coverage from the ITU Gamagori Triathlon World Championships this year, ITU’s Online Services on www.triathlon.org will have a live video feed of the entire men’s and women’s events. The live video will be integrated with live timing, live text updates, live photographs, plus live commentary by “ITU Voices of Triathlon”; Jackie Fairweather and Barrie Shepley, with special guests from this all important closing World Cup event.

Live coverage from New Plymouth will begin at noon local time on Sunday, November 13 or at the following times:

Sunday, 13 November	Saturday 12 November
10:00 – Sydney	23:00 – London
08:00 – Tokyo	18:00 - New York
07:00 - Beijing	17:00 – Chicago
00:00 – Madrid	15:00 – Vancouver

To watch this event live all you need is Flash player. Most computers will already have this player installed (you do if you can watch any of the Tricasts™ already on the site), but if you do not it can be downloaded from: MacroMedia.

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.