🇦🇹 European Triathlon Cup Wels shapes as a handy mid-season WOF check for (from L to R) Saxon Morgan, Finnley Oliver and Henry McMecking on Sunday local time (6am Monday NZ Time).
Cantabrians Morgan and McMecking are ranked two and three respectively behind Italy’s Euan De Nigro for the Austria sprint while Tauranga teen Oliver is looking forward to the first race of his latest northern hemisphere campaign.
With one eye firmly on next month’s World Triathlon Sprint & Mixed Relay Championships in Hamburg, Morgan will look to kick on from his “happy-ish” 26th at the recent WTCS Alghero in Sardinia. The world No.56 and reigning Oceania super sprint bronze medallist was 6th the last time he raced Wels in 2023.
World No. 117 McMecking is coming off knee-niggle impacted 22nd and 31st placings at Olsztyn and Kielce in Poland, also European Cups. Like Morgan, he’s building towards World Cup Saidia in Morocco on June 29 and happy to have had a chance to mix training and exam prep at Tri NZ’s European base in Banyoles, Spain to get back up to speed.
“Definitely found I wasn’t in a place to be competitive on the bike and run after my knee niggle. So while the results are a bit disappointing, I’ve learnt more from getting a little smoked and can take the positives from coming out of the water in decent positions,” McMecking said.
“Now in Banyoles 🇪🇸 with the opportunity to get my bike and run back to where they need to be in a pretty epic place. Just gotta get through exams next week.”
Wels will be Oliver’s first race since the his thoroughly impressive 13th at the Oceania Super Sprint champs on Gold Coast. The world No. 314 is building for October’s Junior World Championships in Wollongong with a pair of European Cup starts – Wels and Holten (June 21) – before a trip to Hungary for World Cup Tiszaujvaros (July 5-6). The last time he raced in Wels, Oliver was 25th in the junior race.
