NEWS

Great Britain’s Non Stanford wins 2012 ITU Under23 World Championship

By Merryn Sherwood | 20 Oct, 2012
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Highlights of the 2012 Grand Final Auckland Women U23

In tough conditions on a challenging course, Great Britain’s Non Stanford grinded out her most impressive performance to date to claim the 2012 ITU Under23 World Championship in Auckland on Saturday.

After going toe-to-toe for almost the entire 10km run, Stanford pulled away from the Netherlands Sarissa De Vries with a few hundred metres to go to win in a time of 2 hours 13 minutes and 6 seconds, just eight seconds ahead of De Vries, and permanently add Auckland to her favourite destinations list.

“What a great city,” Stanford said. “I always judge a city by how well I do so Auckland is definitely up there now as one of my favourite cities in the world.”

Canada’s Joanna Brown was a clear bronze medal winner, although she was almost a minute behind De Vries she ran solo for almost the entire run leg, well clear of the rest of the field.

The race kicked off Saturday’s action in Auckland and a chilly start greeted the Under23 women, with an official air temperature of 13.2 degrees and a wetsuit swim with a water temperature of 14.6 degrees.

With strong swimmers like Lucy Hall, Caroline Routier, Claudia Rivas and Celine Schaerer in the field, the swim pace was fast and they formed a small breakaway out of T1 along with Sara Vilic. But Australia’s Ashlee Bailie quickly turned it on at the start of the bike and helped bring Simone Ackermann, Natalie Van Coevorden, Ellen Pennock, Stanford, De Vries, Brown with her to the leaders.

That group of 12 then stayed together at the front, as the chase started to slip away behind them. While pre-race favourites Maaike Caelers and Emmie Charayron were working to try and keep themselves in the race and kept the time gap steady at two minutes, they lost 30 seconds on the penultimate lap which put them out of podium contention.

Up ahead Stanford and De Vries positioned themselves well from T2 and shot off the front immediately, where they stayed for the final kilometre. In a battle of nerves, Stanford took the lead but had a persistent De Vries on her shoulder almost the entire time. Stanford said she couldn’t quite believe it when she didn’t see the chase pack behind her.

“It was a quality field out there, it was a really tough field out there, with some really strong runners,” she said. “I really struggled on the first few laps of the bike but I managed to get myself back in into that front group and we kept just putting time into the pack. I couldn’t believe it because that’s where some of the really strong women were.

“Then I got on the run and just thought keep it steady and look out for those girls coming from behind but they never came so I just kept my head down and kept pushing on. I eventually broke though, but it was really tough, she held on really well.”

De Vries silver continued on a strong year for the Dutch women’s team, with Caelers two series podiums and Rachel Klamer‘s continued move up the elite latter. De Vries was thrilled with her result, after going into the race aiming for a top ten finish.

“It was a bit unexpected, I just wanted to finish the season with a good result, and I thought top ten I would be really happy,” she said. “So I just went out there and gave it my all. On the run, I thought there were some really good runners in our group, but then it was just Non and I together and Non was just so strong, so I just took it lap by lap and in the end she just put on another gear and I just couldn’t go with her anymore.”

It was Great Britain’s sixth Under23 world championship win. Other British athletes to have won ITU U23 World Championships include Hollie Avil, William Clarke, Alistair Brownlee, Jonathan Brownlee and Matthew Sharp.

It was the second ITU world title for Stanford this year, she was also part of Great Britain’s gold medal winning Mixed Relay team in Stockholm.

Caelers recorded the fastest run split of the race to finish tenth.

Related Event: 2012 Barfoot and Thompson World Triathlon Grand Final Auckland
20 - Oct, 2012 • event pageall results
Results: Elite Men
1. Javier Gomez Noya ESP 02:00:29
2. Jonathan Brownlee GBR 02:00:31
3. Sven Riederer SUI 02:01:18
4. Steffen Justus GER 02:01:40
5. Gregor Buchholz GER 02:01:46
6. Kyle Jones CAN 02:01:48
7. Dmitry Polyanskiy RUS 02:01:50
8. Ivan Raña Fuentes ESP 02:01:56
9. Richard Murray RSA 02:02:00
10. David McNamee GBR 02:02:06
Results: Elite Women
1. Anne Haug GER 02:10:48
2. Gwen Jorgensen USA 02:11:00
3. Barbara Riveros CHI 02:11:01
4. Lisa Norden SWE 02:11:03
5. Jodie Stimpson GBR 02:11:03
6. Rachel Klamer NED 02:11:09
7. Andrea Hansen NZL 02:11:10
8. Kate Mcilroy NZL 02:11:12
9. Sarah True USA 02:11:20
10. Juri Ide JPN 02:11:21
Results: U23 Men
1. Aaron Royle AUS 01:57:17
2. Fernando Alarza ESP 01:57:20
3. Thomas Bishop GBR 01:57:21
4. Pierre Le Corre FRA 01:57:29
5. Ryan Fisher AUS 01:57:51
6. Matthew Sharp GBR 01:58:49
7. Jason Wilson BAR 01:59:15
8. Greg Billington USA 01:59:32
9. Igor Polyanskiy RUS 01:59:40
10. Ryan Bailie AUS 01:59:50
Results: U23 Women
1. Non Stanford GBR 02:13:06
2. Sarissa De Vries NED 02:13:15
3. Joanna Brown CAN 02:14:12
4. Claudia Rivas MEX 02:14:26
5. Natalie Van Coevorden AUS 02:14:28
6. Sara Vilic AUT 02:15:06
7. Ashlee Bailie AUS 02:15:09
8. Lucy Buckingham GBR 02:15:11
9. Simone Ackermann RSA 02:15:24
10. Maaike Caelers NED 02:15:41
Results: Junior Men
1. Wian Sullwald RSA 01:01:44
2. Simon Viain FRA 01:01:58
3. Constantine Doherty IRL 01:01:59
4. Kristian Blummenfelt NOR 01:02:31
5. Gordon Benson GBR 01:02:45
6. Marcel Walkington AUS 01:02:58
7. Ryousuke Maeda JPN 01:02:59
8. Jorik Van Egdom NED 01:02:59
9. Eduardo Moreno Castañeda MEX 01:03:04
10. Dorian Coninx FRA 01:03:06
Results: Junior Women
1. Fumika Matsumoto JPN 01:08:33
2. Leonie Periault FRA 01:08:36
3. Tamara Gorman USA 01:08:39
4. Sarah Wilm GER 01:08:44
5. Maddie Dillon NZL 01:08:50
6. Amelie Kretz CAN 01:09:02
7. Sumire Ohara JPN 01:09:02
8. Elise Salt NZL 01:09:04
9. Georgia Taylor-Brown GBR 01:09:35
10. Luisa Condeço POR 01:09:40