Luke Willian will be hoping for a repeat of his Mooloolaba success as he heads to the race in New Plymouth this weekend.  The 20 Year old who trains with Brisbane coach, Warwick Dalziel, won the recent Mooloolaba event over the Standard distance, giving him direct entry into the Gold Coast World Triathlon Series race on April 8th. 

 

Two other Queenslanders, Max Neumann (pictured) and Matthew Roberts also take to the start line, looking to gain all important experience racing some of the world's best triathletes.

 

The New Plymouth event - a sprint distance race, boasts a strong line up, including South Africans Richard Murray and Henri Schoeman.  Murray, who took out the recent Super League Triathlon, and Schoeman, who placed 11th, will also start on the Gold Coast on April 8th.

 

In the Women's event, Queensland fields two athletes - Holly Grice, who recently competed in the Mooloolaba World Cup, and Sophie Malowiecki, who was our highest placed Junior Female at the ITU World Championships in Cozumel last year.  The strong line up in the women's race sees 7 of the top 11 ranked women compete, including local favourite Andrea Hewitt.  Across the whole field, New Plymouth's start list includes 10 of the current top 20 ITU ranked athletes.

 

The World Cup race won't be broadcast on triathlonlive.tv, instead, timing updates will be available through triathlon.org.  Women's race begins 11am NZ time, Men's race begins 1pm NZ time (please adjust for Daylight savings time which ends in NZ this weekend).