{"id":8422,"date":"2021-05-08T07:06:02","date_gmt":"2021-05-08T07:06:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsnewsforyou.com\/?p=8422"},"modified":"2021-05-08T07:06:02","modified_gmt":"2021-05-08T07:06:02","slug":"british-stars-fail-to-scale-heights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/?p=8422","title":{"rendered":"British stars fail to scale heights"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Brits raced within a few miles of the world\u2019s tallest building, but failed to hit the heights after a day of struggles at Challenge Dubai.<\/p>\n

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With the backdrop of the 830m Burj Khalifa, it was the women who fared best with the highest placing \u2013 a commendable fourth \u2013 returned by Jodie Swallow.<\/p>\n

But that was still one spot shy of the podium she achieved three months ago in the sister-race in Bahrain and failed to meet her own high expectations after finishing the bike leg with only Daniela Ryf in front.<\/p>\n

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Leanda Cave put in a solid show on \u2018home soil\u2019 racing for the new Arab-backed Alameda o.n. Triathlon Team team and Alice Hector, at the start of just her second season back in triathlon, will have taken many lessons from finishing 13th in the half iron-distance contest she described as the \u201dbiggest race of her life.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was on the men\u2019s side where the real disappointment came.\u00a0 Joe Skipper was best-placed in 19th after picking up from a 26:07 swim to force his way through the field with a 2:07 bike split and 1:15 run, but was far from content with finishing almost 12mins behind race-winner Terenzo Bozzzone\u2019s 3:41:45.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was 20 watts down on the bike and felt s*** the whole way,\u201d he says. \u201cOn the run I didn\u2019t even feel that good. Five minutes back was quite a lot out of the swim too, it\u2019d normally be about 2 \u00bd minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt really unfit swim-wise and that took a lot out of me and I couldn\u2019t hit my power numbers. In an Ironman I\u2019m not swimming at the same intensity so I can bike more to my potential. Racing a half, I\u2019m not fit enough in the water and it impacts the rest of the race.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s just a shame to go home \u00a3500 down. You want to race the best people in the world, so do these races but even if I got 10th place I\u2019d have only made \u00a3100.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skipper was followed in by David McNamee in 21st. The Scot couldn\u2019t have picked a much tougher non-drafting debut after stepping out of the British Olympic programme at Christmas.<\/p>\n

He shouldn\u2019t see it as a disaster but after emerging from the water on the back of the front pack, he biked 2:15 on a borrowed time-trial bike against a race-best 2:02 before running through the field with a sharp 1:13 split to finish in 3:55:05, 1min 45 behind Skipper. He heads for the regional championship Ironman South Africa next as the baptism of fire away from lottery funding continues.<\/p>\n

Probably winning a hard-fought contest for the most dejected though, was Will Clarke. \u201cIt was a really crap race, probably my worst ever,\u201d admitted the 2008 Olympian with a frank assessment. \u201cI can\u2019t really complain about the swim, I found it hard but it was ok [Clarke led the second pack from the water, 56secs down on the leaders].<\/p>\n

\u201cI just had no power on the bike, I don\u2019t think I passed anyone all day. I had 275 watts average, I can normally push 325, and on the run I just got round and took the workout.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I came here too late and also it was the first race of the year.\u00a0 It\u2019s different to do a hard swim and then ride 2 \u00bd hours hard and sometimes I think it takes a race to get your legs back. But, yes, I\u2019m pretty disappointed, it\u2019s horrendous. \u201c<\/p>\n

Ritchie Nicholls and Fraser Cartmell also struggled on the desert roads, but Nicholls should take some solace from an impressive 1:11 run split \u2013 the fastest of the day, and remarkable considering it still only placed him 34th. Cartmell, sporting a black eye, was 42nd and Jersey\u2019s Dan Halksworth pulled the plug after feeling totally drained.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI aimed for 340watts hit 260 and my heart-rate was at 180 with a max of 186, I just couldn\u2019t get it down,\u201d he said. \u201cI just suffered the whole race on the bike and on the run had absolutely nothing left.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was burning too many matches. For my heart rate to get to 180 on the bike! I don\u2019t hit that when I\u2019m doing five-minute efforts. There\u2019s something wrong. The doctor said there is a virus going round Dubai at the moment and he thinks I probably have something.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI wasn\u2019t particularly well yesterday, but thought that was just nerves. I need to just get over it and do well in the next race.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Brits raced within a few miles of the world\u2019s tallest building, but failed to hit the heights after a day of struggles at Challenge Dubai. Advertisement With the backdrop of the 830m Burj Khalifa, it was the women who fared best with the highest placing \u2013 a commendable fourth \u2013 returned by Jodie Swallow….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}