Posted: December 1, 2007

Triathlon: First time winners Spirig and Tayama reign in Israel

Nicola Spirig of Switzerland and Hirokatsu Tayama of Japan capped off the 2007 season with their first World Cup wins today in Israel at the 2007 Eilat BG Triathlon World Cup. Spirig finished with a finish time of 2 hours 2 minutes and 42 seconds. In all it was a phenomenal day for Japan. In addition to Tayama’s historic win, Juri Ide also set a career-first with a silver in the women’s race. Annabel Luxford of Australia, no stranger to the podium, finished third for the bronze, the 16th World Cup medal of her career. But this day belonged to Spirig. “I feel absolutely great, it’s such a good way to finish the season,” said the former Junior World and European Champion. “I’m extremely happy; it was a great year for me. I have eight top-tens in the World Cups and the bronze medal at the European Championships so I think it was a breakthrough year for me.” The extremely strong cyclist Spirig used those skills today, jumping to the lead early in the bike with 19 other women including pre-race favorites Luxford, Elizabeth May of Luxembourg, Samantha Warriner of New Zealand and Julie Ertel of the United States. The group of 20 worked together over the 40-kilometre bike course to increase their lead to two minutes on the chasers. The three medals would be decided from this group. Immediately out on the run course, Spirig surged ahead with only Japan’s Ide able to stay with her. Both women had their sights on their first world cup podium. Late into the run many women began to fade as the unassumingly hard bike course began to take its toll on their legs. This was not the case with Spirig, however, as she pulled away from Ide over the final two kilometres to cross the line first, celebrating the 2007 season finale with her first World Cup title. Despite her best efforts, Warriner was unable to make the top nine she needed to move to second in the rankings. She finished 13th, and remains in third place in the year-end rankings. With the 2007 women’s season coming to an end, Portuguese superstar Vanessa Fernandes secures a second BG Triathlon World Cup series crown with rising Aussie, Emma Moffatt in second. 2007 Eilat BG Triathlon World Cup – Final Women’s Results: Gold – Nicola Spirig (SUI) 2:02:42 Silver – Juri Ide (JPN) 2:03:10 Bronze – Annabel Luxford (AUS) 2:03:21 4th – Jodie Swallow (GBR) 2:03:26 5th – Ainhoa Murua (ESP) 2:04:02 6th – Julie Ertel (USA) 2:04:11 7th – Akane Furutani (JPN) 2:04:21 8th – Kathy Tremblay (CAN) 2:04:23 9th – Evgenita Matveeva (RUS) 2:04:24 10th – Jessica Harrison (FRA) 2:04:35 History was made in the men’s field as Tayama became the first Japanese athlete to ever win an ITU World Cup. Last year’s Asian Champion broke the tape with a time of 1 hour, 49 minutes and 47 seconds. His previous best in a World Cup result was a 7th place finish in his native Japan at the 2006 event in Ishigaki. Ukrainian Volodymyr Polikarpenko was 46 seconds behind Tayama for the silver, taking his 22nd career World Cup medal while Russian phenom Alexander Brukhankov came across the line for the bronze, putting an exclamation mark on his own breakthrough year. Off the bike, Tayama bolted out of the second transition and left the rest of the field behind. The gamble paid off as no other man would catch him for the remainder of the race. Tayama was runner-up at this year’s Asian Championships, finished 13th at the Athens Olympics and 5th at last year’s Asian Games in Doha. Japan has hosted 28 World Cups in ITU history, more than any other country but had never seen a gold medalist until Tayama’s victory today. At the finish line he celebrated with a dance and later a tearful phone call back home. Dmitry Polyansky of Russia and Duarte Silva Marques of Portugal both finished inside the top five, the best of each of their careers. With the win, Tayama rockets up the world rankings and finishes the year at number 26 from 57. Polikarpenko moves up one spot to number six which drops Brukhankov down to seven. But no one was going to catch world number one Javier Gomez in the rankings. With four World Cup titles in 2007, the Spaniard secured the overall World Cup series title. 2007 Eilat BG Triathlon World Cup – Final Men’s results: Gold – Hirokatsu Tayama (JPN) 1:49:46 Silver – Volodymyr Polikarpenko (UKR) 1:50:32 Bronze – Alexander Brukhankov (RUS) 1:50:36 4th – Dmitry Polyansky (RUS) 1:50:44 5th – Duarte Silva Marques (POR) 1:50:47 6th – Andriy Glushenko (UKR) 1:50:59 7th – Oliver Freeman (GBR) 1:51:03 8th – Richard Stannard (GBR) 1:51:06 9th – Matt Reed (USA) 1:51:13 10th – Axel Zeebroek (BEL) 1:51:22 >Photos:Janos Schmidt/triathlon.org Subscribe to the Runner's Web Weekly Digest