Gurney rides to ironman title

Press, 23 October 1989, Page 32

Gurney rides to ironman title

From

KEVIN TUTTY

in Queenstown

A powerful performance by Steve Gurney in the 27km mountain cycle ride swept him to his second successive Fresh Up ironman title in Queenstown yesterday.

At the start of the cycle leg Gurney was two minutes ahead of the second competitor, Maara Ave. At the end of the race Ihr 24min later Gurney had extended his lead to 25 minutes. He crossed the finish in Queenstown Mall in remarkably fresh condition in 4hr 40min 39s after the start, on skis, 600 ft up Mt Aurum, deep behind the remote Shotover Gorge. Ave who had performed well to stay so close to Gurney for the first two-thirds of the race found the cycle leg arduous and slipped back through the field to finish eighth/ 43 minutes behind Gurney.

Steve Elgar, of Otaki, performed consistently to finish second. He was with the leaders, in fourth place at the changeover to the kayak leg. A strong paddler, Elgar stayed in touch on the water and maintained his fourth position, but he was headed home by a few seconds by another top kayaker, Ron Cole, of New Plymouth. Elgar finished in shr smin 22s five minutes clear of the third placegetter, Dean Arthur. There were only two women in the race, and the first to finish, Penny Webster, of Cromwell, w as in a commendable twentythird place. She fell back on the cycle leg after being in the first 12 at the end of the canoe leg. Webster was narrowly beaten last year and her win yesterday was consolation for the disappointment of that result. The start of the race on Mt Aurum was chaotic and comical. The 40 competitors were lined up

on a steep slope, and the start order by the race organiser, Robin Judkins, was a signal for skiers to start traversing across the slope. The result was half the field ski-ing into each other and a tangle of bodies and skis. The chaos was quickly sorted out and the leading competitors soon established themselves at the head of the field.

Ave, a 23-year-old student who cut his endurance racing teeth on the Coast-to-Coast race, had a short lead nearing the end of tlie run.

He reached the Skippers Bridge, high above the Shotover Gorge, just before the transition to the kayak, 50m ahead of Gurney but a few hundred metres down the road Gurney snatched the lead when he took a short-cut to the Shotover riverbed where the kayaks were waiting. 4 Gurney has worked on streamlifting his transitions and he com-

pleted them yesterday with the precision of a Ferrari pit crew.

He had a two minute start on Ave at the start of the kayak leg and although Ave had narrowed that to half a minute at the end of the kayak Gurney immediately built it back to two minutes with another slick changeover. Gurney had a puncture on the toruous mountain' bike leg, but still had time to repair it and end with a formidable time margin. Leading results: Men.— S. Gurney (Christchurch), 4:40:39, 1, S. Algar (Otaki), 5:5:22, 2; D. Arthur (Christchurch), 5:10:04, 3; R. Cole (New Plymouth), 5:12:47, 4; M. Cox (Christchurch), 5:14:09, 5; G. Miles (Auckland), 5:20:51, 6; J. Snook (Dunedin), 5:22:56, 7; M. Ave (Dunedin), 5:23:55, 8; M. Watson (Christchurch), 5:24:14, 9; G. Sutherland (Trentham), 5:27:51, 10. Women.—P. Webster (Cromwell), 5:57:56, 1; M. Holdstock (Christchurch), 7:11:56, 2. Veteran men.—R. Bailey (Alexandra), 5:53:50, 1; D. Pilditch (Dunedin), q*12:52, 2 Picture, page 21