NE SPORTS BUREAU
CHENNAI, FEB 23
Serbia’s Ognjen Stojanovic and Barbara Riveros of Chile emerged victorious in the men’s and women’s sections respectively in the NTT ASTC Triathlon Asian Cup here on Sunday.
In the senior nationals held simultaneously, Adarsh Muralidharan Nair of SSCB and Sarojini Devi Thoudam of Manipur claimed the men’s and women’s titles respectively. High tidal waves and strong current, however, played spoilsport as the event was conducted without the swimming phase.
The triathletes were to enter the waters around 6.30 am rough conditions in the sea made the technical delegate of the meet Sam Wikramasinghe of Sri Lanka to decide that the swimming phase was not possible because even the buoys could not be put in place for the on-sea turns for the swimmers.
“Taking into consideration the safety aspect, we decided to skip swimming and instead added an additional 5 km of running for the start,” he was quoted as saying in a press release.
Accordingly the triathletes started off early, first took to the road on their feet for a 5 km lap and then switched to cycles for the 40 km phase and thereafter once again returned to running for another 10 km for the third phase. In short, the event had the complexion of a duothlon. Stojanovic and Rivero received USD 600 award for the first place apart from a gold medal and a trophy. The two Indian national champions Adarsh and Sarojini were placed 9th in the list of finishers of the Asian competition. That being the best timings from the Indian perspective, they won the national honours. Commodore S Shyam Sunder, Naval officer in charge, TN and Puducherry Area and Chennai city police Commissioner A K Viswanathan gave away the medals and trophies in the Asian Cup section. N Ramachandran, CEO, Indian Triathlon Federation and Justin Park, President, Asian Triathlon Confederation gave away prizes to the national winners.
The results of Asian Cup: Men: 1.
Ognjen Stojanovic (SRB) 00:16:33 (Ist run)-01:02:33 (cycling)-00:28:53 (second run)-01:48:47 (overall); 2.
Oscar Coggins (HKG) (00:16:34) – (01:02:33) – (00:29:09)- 01:49:03; 3.
Jdan Celustka (CZE) (00:16:34) – (01:02:31) (00:29:29) 01:49:24.
Women: 1.
Barbara Riveros (CHI) (00:20:23) (01:07:04)- (00:32:43) 02:01:07; 2.
Antoanela Manac (ROU): (00:20:23) (01:07: 05) (00:33:06) 02:01:25; 3.
Arina Shulgina (ITU) (00:20:23) (01:07:07) (00:33:14) 02:01:36.
National Championship: Men: 1.
Adarsh Muralidharan Nair (SSCB) (00:17:56) (01:05:57) (00:33:06) 01:58:01; 2.
Bishworjit Saikhom (SSCB) (00:18:50) (01:05:14) (00:33:43) 01:58: 42; 3.
Mali Raghunath (SSCB) (00:19:49) (01:05:36) (00:36:58) 02:03:15.
Women: 1.
Sarojini Devi Thoudam (Mani) (00:22:12) (01:16:44) (00:41:04) 02:21:20; 2.
Monika Mukheshbhai Nagpure (Guj) (00:22:12) (01:16:57) (00:42:39) 02:22:56; 3.
Pragnya Mohan (Guj) (00:22:50) (01:16: 20) (00: 44:26) 02:24:41.
