TRI NZ vs TRI SA

Greetings fellow triathletes, all the way from sunny (yes that’s right) Auckland New Zealand. Having made the decision to emigrate based on personal and family reasons two years ago, we finally arrived just more than 6 weeks back.

I am not going to harp on the pro’s and con’s each country presents but rather give you some “early” insight into the tri scene in New Zealand and why they are so successful (despite the climate - and a total population of only 4 million).

In the last 6 weeks, I have managed to compete in 2 Olympic distance races, 1 half iron-man, 2 swim/run duathlons and 2 sea swims. That’s quite a lot when one looks at the comparison to the South African calendar. Bear in mind that most of these events have been hosted within 20km of each other.

On average, NZ triathletes can race at least 3 times per week during the summer months. Part of this is due to the daylight savings time which adds (at least) an extra 2hrs on to each day. So even if you’re a working person, there is more than enough time to train after work, with dark only falling somewhere closer to 9pm at its peak. Tuesdays and Thursdays are normally reserved for the swims or the swim/run duathlons events, while the weekends are reserved for the more traditional tri events. All their events are extremely well attended and very competitive from junior level right up to age group and senior level. I would assume that this is partly due to the fact that their summers are not that long, so hence the need to cram as many events in as they can (the season only gets going towards November sometime). Having said that and with only a limited amount of personal experience, the commitment to supporting the events and competing regularly, seems to be a lot greater in NZ than it is in SA. That in turn has a major effect on the level of competition and development of the sport in general.

What tri NZ do have in place, is a definite and clear policy geared towards assisting the top elite athletes in pursuit of their goals. Right from junior level up, each athlete already knows what they need to do in order to reach the top, and once they reach it, they know what support they can expect to get in return. This is definitely lacking in SA triathlon at the moment. The junior level in NZ is extremely competitive with a host of youngsters all vying to reach the top and practically killing each other during the racing to do so. I competed in a swim/run duathlon (1km swim- 3km run) event just the other day and was amazed to see the quality and depth of the field amongst the 20 – 24yr olds, especially during the swim leg. I was considered to be a strong swimmer back in SA but on that day, I was only one of at least 20 swimmers getting out of the water within 15 seconds of each other not to mention some of the other top guys who came out of the water a further 20 seconds in front. Needless to say, the young guns blitzed the run leg trying to secure the win, all of this happening on a weekly Tuesday evening down at the beach. Can you imagine what goes down when they get serious and do the more traditional tri events? SA has the talent no doubt (a number of the world top triathletes representing other countries at the moment) all have their roots back home. The big problem tri SA faces at the moment is being able to transform a youngster with talent into a world beater. Tri NZ has the recipe for that, tri SA still need to find it.

Other than that, generally speaking, triathlon in NZ is big, with all the sport/bike retail shops geared around triathlon specifically or with some strong connections to it. The sport (triathlon) generally carries a high profile in NZ at the moment (mostly due to the fact that Ironman NZ is the worlds 2nd oldest event of that kind and because Hamish Carter is the reigning Olympic Champion (now retired) and Beven Docherty was runner-up. That’s big for a smallish country like this. Youngsters aspire to be just like them, hence the level keeps on getting better. We saw a similar occurrence with swimming in SA at the last Olympic Games, with our top boys grabbing gold. Swimming (in SA) has grown in stature amongst the general population as well as among the juniors who all want to be like their heroes. Hopefully South Africa can find someone similar to fly the flag and put the sport of triathlon into the limelight. It’s going to be tough without the proper support needed, I must admit but still possible.

Anyway, generally speaking for me, it’s great to be racing and preparing for different events. Everything is new and fresh, so it’s giving me a bit of inspiration to keep on training hard. I will not do IMNZ this year (the move over has taken its toll on my normal daily routine) but will definitely look at it next year. The closest I came to a major race so far was the NZ Half Ironman champs, 4 weeks ago. A 4:14 finish time on a difficult/extended course could only give me 13th place, so plenty work ahead of me to make a “small” name for myself over here.

That’s about it, once I have some more insight and news, I will be sure to send it your way. Ironman New Zealand 2009 is the focus now, any takers from SA wanting to do the same?

Signing out

Glen Gore
Auckland NZ

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 24th, 2008 at 2:42 am and is filed under Auckland, Bevan Docherty, Glen Gore, Hamish Carter, Ironman New Zealand, New Zealand, New Zealand Half Ironman, triathlon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.