Matthew Greer and Jodie Berry were the best of the South Africans at the ATU Sprint Triathlon African Cup in Rwanda recently, writes MARK ETHERIDGE.
The race was contested over the sprint distance made up of 750m of swimming, a 20km cycle and rounded off with a 5km run, all in the vicinity of Lake Kivu on the border of Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.
Greer ended up taking second spot behind Namibia’s JP Burger while Berry was top of the women’s division.
Burger clocked 56min 12sec for the win with Greer just four seconds adrift.
He told Team SA: ‘The race went really well in Rwanda. The competition was small but definitely didn’t lack quality.
‘The race started off fast on the swim with Dylan Nortje [SA] taking up the front-running. We came out of the water with a small gap and after about 4km, Dylan and I were joined by JP and Rinaldo Morgia.’
The 19-year-old Pretoria athlete went on: ‘The four of us rode pretty much the rest of the ride together.
‘Once the run started, it was very tactical with JP and Dylan making surges the first 2km but I then took up the pace on the run with 3km to go and tried everything to put distance against me and JP. But it came down to the line and JP had the faster legs in the sprint to take the win.
‘All in all, I’m very happy with the results. And well done to JP for taking the win and Dylan for coming in third. I’m definitely looking to have more great results like this and to keep working on making consistent improvements.’
The women’s race saw 23-year-old Berry (pictured above) leading from start to finish in a small four-strong elite women’s field. Already after the swim, she had close to a four-minute lead and did nothing but extend that during the bike and leg run.
She ended up with a winning time of 1hr 11min 55sec, more than 10 minutes ahead of the host nation’s Uwineza Hamani (1:23:42)