Umphenour, Niwata take Hong Kong

Posted: November 17th, 2008 @ 10:29pm

Source: www.triathlon.org


Japan’s triple Olympic Kiyomi Niwata and American veteran Joe Umphenour won the OSIM 2008 Hong Kong ITU Triathlon Asian Cup this past weekend.

In the elite women’s field, Niwata overcame a 40-second deficit after the swim and clocked the fastest run in the field to handily take gold, her first ITU title since winning gold at the Tokyo Asian Cup in 2005. It was Niwata’s first race since the Beijing Olympic Games where she finished ninth. She’s been racing on the ITU circuit consistently since 1997 and is arguably the most accomplished Japanese triathlete ever. Aussie Sarah Crowley came across the line for silver, her third medal is as many races this year on the Asian Cup circuit. After finishing fourth in her age-group at the Hamburg world championships, Crowley has made the jump to the elite ranks. Czech Olympian Vendula Frintova took the bronze, duplicating last year’s feat.

OSIM 2008 Hong Kong ITU Triathlon Asian Cup
Elite Women – Final Results
Gold - Niwata, Kiyomi (JPN) 02:11:52
Silver - Crowley, Sarah (AUS) 02:12:27
Bronze - Frintova, Vendula (CZE) 02:13:11

For the elite men, Umphenour extended his podium streak to three after taking his first career ITU title. The American came back from after being down by 30 seconds out of the water. He posted the fastest run split amongst the men to win by a 10-second margin over Aussie James Seear. Kazakhstan’s double Olympian and last year’s winner Daniil Sapunov took the bronze.

A runner-up at this year’s U.S. National Championships, Umphenour followed that up with a silver medal last week in San Francisco and stepped up for gold this past weekend. Like women’s winner Niwata, he has been racing on the ITU circuit consistently since 1997.

OSIM 2008 Hong Kong ITU Triathlon Asian Cup
Elite Women – Final Results
Gold - Umphenour, Joe (USA) 01:57:43
Silver - Seear, James (AUS) 01:57:53
Bronze - Sapunov, Daniil (KAZ) 01:58:08