6th WORLD UNIVERSITY TRIATHLON CHAMPIONSHIP
Nanao, Japan - August 10th to 11th, 2002
Double Victory for the Czech Republic
The 6th World University Triathlon Championship was held in Nanao bay in Japan on 10 and 11 August last summer. The town of Nanao is near the centre of the main island in the archipelago facing the Sea of Japan. Sea-going traffic has been the source of its growth since ancient times, and it enjoys remarkable landscapes and many cultural and historic attractions. The triathlon meet took place at the 'Wakura Hot Spring Resort' facing Nanao bay, a beautiful site and an ideal environment for the race. This was the first time that an Asian country has hosted a FISU triathlon. In fact, all of the first five editions took place in Europe. Apparently, the triathlon is very popular in Japan since the Japanese Triathlon Union has 10,000 members. More than 10% of them, for a total of 1,380 from 120 universities to be accurate, take part in the national university championships in this sport.
Perfect Organization
The Japanese Triathlon Union organizes eight regional and one national championship. Since the town of Nanao has hosted the national championships for the last two years, it has acquired excellent know-how in the organization of these meets. For this reason, combined with the sponsorship of the "Fujikura Electric Wire Company", FISU was fully very confident in the success of the championship. There is no doubt that the Japanese organization was again marvelous as participating athletes and officials unanimously agreed. About 1,500 volunteers supervised the trials that were broadcast live on television. On the day of the race, the weather was fairly difficult, with high humidity and a temperature of 29°C in the shade already at 9:00 a.m. But the weather did not stop the public from coming in large numbers to applaud the triumph of the Czech team.
An Intensive Struggle
The meet began with the women's race. A swim of 1.5 km in water at 27 ° was the first lap for the triathletes. British Catherine Hare was the first out of the water, with Japanese Yuka Asakura on her heels. Performances were different enough at that point to designate a favourite—only 8 seconds separated the first from the tenth swimmer. So It took the cycling race to see how the ranks shaped up. Still, after the 40 km race, the differences were still minimal, and the struggle intense. Catherine Hare was still ahead, followed by Austrian Eva Brambock and Czech Lenka Radova. The final 10km foot race would be decisive to crown the best university triathlete. Lenka Radova gained more than one minute over her direct competitors, for a magnificent victory and the gold medal. Eva Brambock took second place more than one minute 15 seconds behind (grand total). Another Czech athlete, Anna Supinova, who also ran a superb foot race, won third.
Filip Ospaly's Second Title
The start-off of the men's race was at about noon in trying heat. Czech Filip Ospaly, current world university champion, got off to a fine start and showed his ambition as he finished second in the swimming race, just behind Estonian Albert Marko. Filip's advantage lies in the fact that he doesn't really have a weak point and can count on a regular performance in all three disciplines. Clocking the fifth best time in the cycling lap, he took the head of the intermediary classification (swimming + cycling) and could look forward to serenely managing his advance in the foot race. He did better than that—he came in second in this discipline and took the final with a comfortable 38-second lead. The American Seth Wealing came in second. Finally, British Richard Hains, who was also very regular, finished third. With two individual victories assured, why stop there? Thanks to the fine performance of Michal Danek and Tomas Klima, respectively 11th and17th in the men's race, plus Anna Supinova and Vendula Trnkova for the ladies (3rd and 14th), the Czechs swept the team classification as well (we recall that the team classification takes account of the three best individual times). Four gold medals out of four – hard to do better. The next World University Triathlon Championship will take place in Palma de Mallorca, Spain in July 2004.
MEDALS
MEN
1. Filip OSPALY - CZE 2. Seth WEALING - USA 3. Richard HAINS - GBR
MEN'S TEAM
1. CZE (Filip Ospaly, Michal Danek, Tomas Klima) 2. HUN ( Szabolcs Agoston, Szabolcs Kaldau, Andras Heczey) 3. FRA ( Franky Batelier, Julien Loy, Pierre Dorez)
WOMEN
1. Lenka RADOVA - CZE 2. Eva BRAMBOCK - AUT 3. Anna SUPINOVA - CZE
WOMEN'S TEAM
1. CZE (Lenka Redova, Tiffany Evans, Tiffany Evans) 2. GBR (Catherine Hare, Joanna Hinde, Chrissy Radon) 3. JPN (Risa Akizuki, Rika Takashashi, Junko Yashiro)
PARTICIPATION
100 participants representing 18 countries.
