New opportunities for triathlete
Local athlete Wian Sullwald is on his way to Yokohama in Japan to participate in a triathlon World Series event after being crowned the South African under-23 champion recently.
Winning the South African under-23 triathlon title at the African Championships in Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt was exactly the confidence booster Tuks athlete Wian Sullwald needed before this weekend’s World Series event in Yokohama.
“I promised myself that I would take it one step at a time in my quest for that one perfect race performance this season, and that is why I am more than satisfied with the way things played out on Sunday. I guess I could have pushed myself a little bit harder during the running leg, but I purposely decided not to do so because I realised that I had no chance of catching Henri Schoeman. He was simply a class act on the day and fully deserved his overall win,” Sullwald said afterwards.
Schoeman won the 1.5km swim, 40km cycle and 10km run in 01:52:17. Sullwald finished second overall (01:54:17), which meant that he won the SA under-23 title for the second consecutive year. Basson Engelbrecht was third with a time of 01:55:51.
Sullwald’s support team at the High Performance Centre (hpc) said they were impressed by his performance. He recently suffered from tick bite fever, which greatly impacted his immune system, and he could only start with serious training in the last few weeks. He was not expected to be competitive at this stage of his comeback.
According to Sullwald, at first he tried to keep up with Schoeman during the swim on Sunday. “I managed to draft in his slipstream for the first 400m or so, but Henri was just too strong, and eventually powered away from me. This left me to fend for myself until the end. Basson Engelbrecht and Eddie van Heerden joined me during the cycle leg. The cycle course was quite tough. It consisted of eight laps and during each lap we were challenged by quite a nasty little energy-sapping climb. This, together with the humid conditions, made it impossible for me to catch Henri, so the three of us just rode together at a steady pace until the end.”
Sullwald said he opted to run the first 5km at a consistent pace. It was only during the last few kilometres that he started to up his pace, which enabled him to move into second place. Throughout the race, Sullwald kept reminding himself that he needed to save his energy for the World Series event on Sunday.
“My main challenge in Yokohama will be not to be too hard on myself. I have to realise that I am not yet fit enough to challenge the world’s best triathletes head-on. Competing in Yokohama will be the second step on my road to full recovery and it will also be an excellent opportunity for me to gain some more international racing experience,” he concluded.
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