The Full Send Rapid-fire: Hamilton at 70.3 St George, the Canty couple who crushed it in Raro + news you need to know

⛰️ Hamilton Hoping for Utah repeat
Ben Hamilton will be out to improve his already impressive 10th place in the early season Ironman Pro Series standings at this weekend’s 70.3 St George. The 26-year-old Aucklander, 56th in the latest PTO World Rankings, is coming off his 12th at Ironman Texas a fortnight ago and has form in Utah, having backed up his breakthrough 3rd at Ironman NZ in March last year with 2nd at 70.3 St George behind Sam ‘Yo Yo Yo’ Long. With the American, Canada’s Lionel Sanders and the Great Dane Magnus Ditlev ranked above him, Hamilton won’t have it so easy this time, nor fellow Kiwi Jayden Kuijpers. If you like you tri backdrops awe-inspiring, be sure to tune into the final edition of St George, which doubles as the North American Championship, on proseries.ironman.com from 12:30am Sunday NZ Time. 

🐄 Stock Fence 1, McPherson 0
Matamata off-roader Kieran McPherson is eyeing round four of the Xterra World Cup in Oak Mountain, Alabama next weekend after being forced out of last weekend’s stop in Staffordshire. 💬 “Unfortunately, I lost the battle against a stock fence pre riding @xterra_uk Round 3 of the @xterraplanet World Cup. I’m lucky to have only come away with a concussion.”
McPherson, 33, slipped from 4th to 8th on the season standings as a result of his nasty spill. Auckland 40-year-old Lizzie Orchard is up two spots to 7th overall after her 11th place at leafy Weston Park in England.

🦘Wollongong Gang
New Zealand will be represented by a team of 287 at October’s World Triathlon Age Group Championships in Wollongong. All that is left now is for NZL’s cohort of elite, U23 and Junior’s (U19) to book their spots for the ‘Gong’.

🇵🇱 McMecking Eyeing Poland
Sadly missed but not forgotten at last weekend’s Oceania Super Sprint Championships was Henry McMecking, pictured above training in the hills of Canterbury. The 21-year bypassed Runaway Bay as a precaution as he eye’s October’s World Triathlon U23 Championships in Wollongong. 💬 “Awesome to see but disappointing to miss the action over the weekend in the GC. My knee niggle persisted longer than expected, so the decision was made to stay home with my support team to be ready for the next couple months. Volume in training is almost back to normal now with 3 weeks till the first race of my European block in Poland. Hugely grateful for the team at Four Physio helping me to be the most prepared I can be.” 

🥢 WTCS Revived
Remember the World Triathlon Championship Series? Barely? Us, too. After Hayden Wilde and Germany’s Lisa Tertsch won the season opener in Abu Dhabi way back in mid-February, we’re counting down to rounds two and three in Yokohama and Alghero on May 17 and 31 respectively. There’ll be no Wilde in Yokohama given his training ride accident in Tokyo, leaving Tayler Reid to fly the Silver Fern solo. Reid will at least have company at the new Italian venue with James Corbett, Saxon Morgan, Brea Roderick and Eva Goodisson on the initial start lists for Alghero. 🇮🇹

🇺🇸 Supertri Chicago
The annual Supertri circus is one of TFS’s favourite forms of swim, bike and run. What we’re not so keen on is how the season schedule is drip-fed out to the world, presumably to keep us engaged in a brand with a finite window. Mark Supertri Chicago in your diary for August 23 and standby for the “remainder of the Supertri calendar…soon.” 

🏖️ The Ritchie’s Raro double
Carl and Olivia Ritchie did a couple’s double at the Air New Zealand-sponsored Cook Islands Triathlon last Saturday. The Christchurch husband and wife won the 1500m swim, 42km bike and 10km run titles in 2:18:07 and 2:24:23 respectively. Carl edged Auckland’s Rob Dallimore (2:20:13), reversing their positions from last year, with 50-something Cook Islander Roland Neururer (2:32:53) rounding out the podium. 

It was a third straight title for Olivia who counts her blessings every time she races. Not long after claiming her first Raro title, she was airlifted to Christchurch hospital in June 2023 following a family outing from Tekapo to Mt Cook that literally hit the skids, black ice sending their car rolling. While Carl and Olivia’s sister escaped relatively unscathed, Olivia fractured her spine and lost feeling in her legs due to vertebrae compressing her spinal cord.

The 3000m/1500m NZ Championship winning runner turned triathlete, who had planned to have a crack at the pro ranks before the accident, was even told by her surgeon that her best bet of elite competition post-surgery might be the Paralympics. “I think I was supposed to be happy about that but I wasn’t,” Ritchie told The Press. 

Nine months of rehab and recovery followed the surgery and Olivia is now back winning regularly, comfortably edging countrywoman Martina Wreford (2:41:29) last Saturday, with Maya Postrzygacz (Cook Islands) third in 2:43:15. 

It’s worth noting Olivia finished 21st in the 30-34 age group at last December’s Ironman 70.3 worlds in Taupo in a time of 4:55:30. You’re a deadset legend, Olivia.  

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WORLD CUP CHENGDU: James Corbett – ‘Big things loading’

🎤 Not long after James Corbett crossed the finish line to secure silver for the NZL ‘A’ team at Sunday’s Oceania Mixed Relay on the Gold Coast, impromptu MC Jazz Hedgeland thrust a microphone under the rising Kiwi star’s nose. 

Corbett’s team-mates nearby braced for impact, no doubt recalling his “Cloud 9” interview for TV post the mid-March Oceania Standard Distance Champs in Tasmania. You may recall the interaction where the Auckland 23-year-old excitedly marvelled at his elite silver and U23 gold and just about muffled an involuntary F-bomb.

There was no expletive repeat at Runaway Bay, rather a self-effacing “I’m a bit embarrassed” after being unable to hold onto Luke Schofield in what turned out to be an epic final lap sprint around the Gold Coast Performance Centre track with the Aussie ‘A’ anchor.

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📺 World Cup Chengdu – TriathlonLive.tv

Saturday, May 10

Men – 12:50pm NZT (James Corbett)

Women – 3:35pm NZT (Ainsley Thorpe)

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What Corbett missed as he continued his interview was Schofield’s nonplused reaction just metres away. “Embarrassed? What? He did so much work on the bike…” the freshly minted individual men’s champ said to everyone in close earshot. 

Schofield was talking about Corbett’s recovery efforts after team-mate Eva Goodisson unfortunately crashed during the penultimate bike leg, enabling Ellie Hoitink to tag Schofield with a massive lead.

Corbett’s effort in the pool and on the bike was impressive, and it’s no surprise that he ran out of puff in the 1500m mano-o-mano, especially after expending so much energy replicating his 4th place in the men’s individual from 2024 earlier in the day.

📷 Kent Gray / SBR-Tri.com 

💬 “P4 at the Oceania Super Sprint Champs for the second year in a row. Gutted to miss the podium but so proud of how I raced x,” Corbett wrote on social media later. 

“Proud to have been able to give it my all after a challenging lead in post Devonport [Tasmania].

“Everything is falling back into place just in time for the overseas adventures.

“Next up Chengdu, China. Then onto Europe for a big block before a big race 🤫 big things loading…”

Don’t be surprised to see Corbett kick on from Runaway Bay, starting at World Cup Chengdu on Saturday where he’ll race the standard distance event alongside Kiwi team-mate Ainsley Thorpe. Thorpe is ranked 6th for the women’s race and will be looking for more after her 8th overall on the Gold Coast. 

Corbett is ranked 7th in a men’s field including two blokes who most definitely won’t take him lightly, Schofield and Aussie compatriot Lachlan Jones who finished one and two in the individual Oceania Super Sprint ahead of Saxon Morgan and Corbett.