|
South Africa's Henri Schoeman produced a scintillating start to the run leg of the men's triathlon to claim his country's first gold medal at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast. In the process, he took down the two men who'd denied him at the Rio Olympics two years earlier: English brothers Alistair and Jonny Brownlee. Schoeman made his intentions clear in the first few hundred metres of the closing leg, opening up a commanding gap from which he was never close to caught. He took gold ahead in a time of 52:31 ahead of fast-finishing Australian Jacob Birtwhistle and Scotland's Marc Austin. "It's a sprint race, it's five [kilometres], you've got to go for it," Schoeman said of his run leg shortly after the victory. "I was running past the guys and I thought they were taking it easy, and I wanted to make a bit of surge to see if they [had] fresh legs or not and then I knew I had a bit of a gap and I kept pushing. "And then I just kept making that gap bigger and bigger and bigger, so I'd rather run at my own pace then having someone sit behind me and sprint past me at the end."  Schoeman emerged from the water in a good position, joining the Brownlee brothers, Austin, New Zealand's Tayler Reid, and Australian Matthew Hauser in a breakaway group at the start of the bike leg. The six-man group couldn't be separated across the slippery middle leg -- heavy pre-race showers adding an extra degree of difficulty for all the competitors -- before Reid got the jump on the changeover to lead out into the final leg. But it was only ever going to be Schoeman's race once he powered clear, the South African's turn of foot too much for the other competitors as he claimed one of the biggest wins of his career. "It means everything to me," he said. "Two years ago, Olympic medallist and now two years later, Commonwealth champion, it's such a fantastic feeling and I'm so happy. "I'm so happy that I could do this for my country, do this for my supporters and most importantly, for my family and my girlfriend; they're the true supporters and I'm just so happy I can bring this medal home. "Commonwealth Games is a big thing for South Africa, and to be able to be a gold medallist, a champion and to be able to bring this medal home to South Africa, it's one of my biggest career highlights. It's up there with the Rio Olympics [bronze] and my ITU [International Triathlon Union] win." While they were right there entering the run leg, the Brownlee brothers faded badly across the closing stages to finish in seventh and 10th place respectively. Alistair Brownlee, in particular, looked strong across both the swim and bike legs, but he quickly dropped away once the race moved onto foot.  "I kind of expected that," Jonny Brownlee said of his brother's closing leg. "I know what he training he's done, he knows what training he's done. He's probably done less running in the last three months then most runners do over every week, so he's not done a lot of running. I knew he was going to be in that position." On his own race, Jonny Brownlee added: "It was pretty terrible, from start to finish I just didn't feel great. "I've had ups and downs coming into this race since the start of January and I missed a lot of training. But I thought I was going to be better than that today. "I dived in and I felt really weak on the swim and when I started riding I had to ride really hard to catch the others, and I'm usually one of the strongest ones on the bike, but I didn't feel great today." But the Brownlee boys' lack of training and sub-optimal health could not detract from Schoeman's win on Thursday, the South African relishing the moment after a difficult start to the year in which leaked IOC emails revealed a positive drug test from the Rio Olympics. He was never issued with an Adverse Analytical Finding nor was he penalised by the International Olympic Committee despite some unusual circumstances. "My two biggest [moments] were the Rio Olympics, when both Brownlees were on top of me on the podium and the whole spotlight was around them, I was out of the picture and I had photographers saying 'out of the way, I want a picture of the Brownlees'; I felt like I was in the shadow then," Schoeman said. "To be able to come this year, win WTS Abu Dhabi, no drama; win Commonwealth Games, no drama, all by myself. Finally getting all the spotlight, all the attention and all the credit that I deserve, I'm just so happy to get that now."
|
