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Roberts 4th in Mooloolaba

Monday, 29 March 2010 
Kate Roberts opened her 2010 international campaign on a high note with a 4th place finish at the World Cup in Mooloolaba, Australia on Sunday 28 March.

Leading up to the race, the weather conditions had been on the hot side, but on the day a little cloud cover offered some respite to the athletes. On the flip side though, the stiff breeze provided a fair bit of chop in the swim.

America’s Laura Bennett strung out the field of 42, on the swim and by the time the 1500m first leg had been covered, there were two distinct groups. Bennet leading the first group out in 20:40. Roberts was out 22 seconds later.

Onto the first of seven laps of the bike (40km), Liz Blatchford took charge of the front group of 13, while Germany’s Ricarda Lisk led the chase group of seven women. A third group of 12 finished the first lap about 25 seconds behind the chase group.

Bennett led into the second transition and charged out onto the four-lap run course with a narrow lead on the big group behind her. Just behind the American were Stimpson, New Zealand’s Debbie Tanner and Canadian Kathy Tremblay. Vendula Frintova leading the next group of women into transition only 30 seconds later, accompanied by Sweetland and a group of 10 other girls.

Five kilometres into the run, a lead group of six women had emerged, led by South Africa’s Kate Roberts. Keeping Roberts company were Stimpson, Sakimoto, Blatchford, Tanner and the Netherland’s Lisa Mensink, Frintova had pulled to within 25 seconds of the leaders at the halfway point of the run.

With just one lap to go, Frintova pulled up to within 10 seconds of Sakimoto and Blatchford, who were now by themselves at the front. The three women eventually came together, and ran together for a brief moment, before Frintova put on a surge and pulled away from the other two women.

2010 Mooloolaba ITU Triathlon World Cup : Elite Women : Results

                                             Time         Swim      Bike         Run
1 Vendula Frintova      CZE   02:03:15   21:53      01:04:54   35:54
2 Tomoko Sakimoto     JPN   02:03:27   21:08      01:05:10   36:23
3 Liz Blatchford          GBR  02:03:43    20:43      01:05:30   36:51
4 Kate Roberts             RSA  02:04:04    21:02      01:05:14   37:08
5 Sarah Groff               USA  02:04:19    20:50      01:05:21   37:20

Article courtesy of triathlon SA

For more info go to www.triathlon.org