{"id":8454,"date":"2021-05-08T08:54:24","date_gmt":"2021-05-08T08:54:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsnewsforyou.com\/?p=8454"},"modified":"2021-05-08T08:54:24","modified_gmt":"2021-05-08T08:54:24","slug":"richard-murray-rules-out-triple-crown-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/?p=8454","title":{"rendered":"Richard Murray rules out Triple Crown challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hugely respected as one of the toughest competitors on the ITU circuit, South Africa\u2019s Richard Murray gave us one of the highlights of the 2014 World Triathlon Series \u2013 a thrilling sprint finish against Spain\u2019s Mario Mola in Hyde Park \u2013 but finished a disappointing 52nd in Edmonton and eighth overall in the series.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Speaking to 220<\/em> yesterday, he says that the end of last season was one of the negative moments of his career: falling ill straight after WTS Stockholm (where he came fifth) with just one week to go until the Grand Final, throw in some missing luggage\u2026 It\u2019s fair to say Edmonton was a washout for South Africa\u2019s leading ITU racer, after some superb earlier results that included bronze at WTS Yokohama, silver in Hyde Park plus a bronze at the Commonwealth Games.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

So what\u2019s he been up to since then? Training, and lots of it, it seems. \u201cAfter Edmonton I sat down with my coach and asked, \u2018What do I need to do between now and Rio to put myself in the position to shoot for a medal every race?\u2019 I looked into it and decided I had to go to Europe earlier than I had planned. I wanted to spend the summer in South Africa like I usually do, but decided to put in the hard miles at the pool. I think more time with the training squad and fewer events in 2015 is what\u2019s going to be the change.\u201d<\/p>\n

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To that end, Murray left South Africa at the end of November for a two-week training camp in Portugal, and has been in Majorca since the start of January for an intensive two-month training block, along with training partner and rival Mola \u2013 where it\u2019s been snowing the past few weeks\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cThe weather was a little bit fresh the last few days but yeah it\u2019s definitely going well. The main priority of coming here was to put in a solid swimming block over these few months, and hopefully that will progress to the point where I\u2019m further up in the swim come Abu Dhabi time.\u201d<\/p>\n

A whole lot of racing\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of course, there\u2019s even more to play for this season: in addition to earning enough points in this year\u2019s 10-event World Triathlon series, there\u2019s qualification for the Rio 2016 Olympics to factor into his race schedule. So how hectic is it looking?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big one for me is I will be qualifying for Rio, also the World Triathlon Series in Cape Town I\u2019m looking forward to quite a bit. The Abu Dhabi WTS race in the first or second week of March is a big one, I love new events, the unknown is there which is always an interesting factor. Moving further down the season Hamburg and London are always great ones in Europe that I enjoy quite a bit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

He tells us that he doesn\u2019t put a lot of emphasis on any one single race \u2013 \u201cobviously apart from the Olympics\u201d \u2013 but the season opener in Abu Dhabi must be ringed in red on his calendar, being a sprint distance event in hot and humid conditions, right?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s going to be an interesting one. The temperature should be mid to high twenties, and it\u2019s being held in the evening as well, so you\u2019re going to have to plan things around that and see how the body is ready at that time of the afternoon. A podium is what I want, I\u2019d love it to come down to a sprint finish like it was in London last year, that\u2019s what the crowd wants. Mario is looking strong here on the camp, it\u2019s definitely going to be an interesting event to watch.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both Brownlees and reigning WTS champ Javier Gomez have already confirmed they\u2019ll be there, but who else does he think could prove tricky? \u201cJo\u00e3o Pereira showed a very good season in 2014, he\u2019s a very powerful athlete, very good in the sprint, and Sven Riederer is coming through as well, his sprint was very good in Stockholm last year. I think there are a couple of guys in the secondary pools who are going to be in the top three leaving the swim. We\u2019ll see how it goes come Abu Dhabi!\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here to continue reading (2\/2)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

So with many of the world\u2019s top triathletes being attracted into racing the Challenge Triple Crown series, thanks to promises in equal measure of top prize purses and outstanding organisation, is he tempted to follow Gomez into the new series? <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI am not, no. I only looked at it the other week, thought \u201cOh lots of prize money, very interesting,\u201d but it\u2019s another of those things where you can\u2019t do everything \u2013 unless you\u2019re Javi [Javier Gomez]! Then you can race every weekend and do an Ironman 70.3 here, a sprint distance there, then a World Triathlon Series\u2026 To be able to do that is not easy, you need to do a lot of things right, you might walk away with injuries and fatigue, not medals and glory.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThere are obviously certain things that Javier does meticulously and in a certain way, he enjoys racing, he\u2019s a racing character and he trains hard to do it. It\u2019s not the easiest thing to do, but he\u2019s a very strong and also more mature athlete than most of us, he\u2019s got a couple of years on myself, the Brownlees and Mario [Mola]. When you\u2019re 30 plus and you\u2019ve got a bit more stamina and endurance in yourself you can actually do something like that, but when you\u2019re young you should stick to what you\u2019re good at and what you really want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rio revelations<\/p>\n

Looking ahead to Rio then, what\u2019s he looking forward to most about the test event this August? \u201cI\u2019m kind of in two minds about doing it, it sounds funny but there\u2019s no prize money, there\u2019s positives and negatives about going to do it. But I definitely think going there and seeing the course is worth doing, there\u2019s quite a hill on the bike as well, there are a couple of things that you want to plan and look at beforehand to take what you can away from the event. There\u2019s going to be a lot of psyched people looking at it as well to see how people race, so it\u2019s definitely going to be an important one.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

And what is the qualification criteria for the South African team? \u201cI haven\u2019t heard thus far, the African style is literally whoever\u2019s the best will go, and that\u2019s usually how my mindset goes. The criteria and everything can be there but that can put stress on the whole matter, every event is important for me. The African events are important for the African guys involved, the African champs in Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt this May, and also WTS Cape Town will be a very important one to do well at.\u201d<\/p>\n

Winter training tips<\/p>\n

To wrap up, we asked Richard what tips he has for 220<\/em> readers trying to stay motivated through a cold British winter \u2013 a plight he\u2019s sympathetic to, particularly given the recent snowfall in Majorca!<\/p>\n

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Snow in ye mountains this morning .. \ud83d\ude42 #Yolo #Soller #Mallorca pic.twitter.com\/CVbL1JtAz9<\/p>\n

\u2014 Richard Murray (@RD_murray) February 1, 2015<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cProbably one of the biggest pieces of advice I can give is to plan your sessions \u2013 it\u2019s quite difficult when the weather gets bad, your motivation levels are a bit low, so definitely saying: \u2018This is what I\u2019m going to do on that certain day.\u2019 even if it\u2019s just one or two sessions, to actually get out there and do it. Once you\u2019ve got past the first half an hour or 40mins you usually think: \u2018Ah that wasn\u2019t so bad.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Also joining groups \u2013 if the weather gets really bad, do it indoors with a couple of mates, you still get the session done. If you have the opportunity and lots of money lying around you can come to somewhere like Majorca, there\u2019s definitely options for doing it, and it\u2019s not horrendously expensive if you book well in advance. If you\u2019re a top age-grouper and you\u2019re able to tap into those type of things then a week or two definitely plays well on the body and the mind.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Click Here: wallabies rugby jersey<\/a><\/p>\n

(Images: Delly Carr \/ Janos Schmidt)<\/p>\n

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We\u2019ll be covering all the action via a liveblog on the 220 website and on Twitter \u2013 join us on 7 March from 3pm local time (11am UK time)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hugely respected as one of the toughest competitors on the ITU circuit, South Africa\u2019s Richard Murray gave us one of the highlights of the 2014 World Triathlon Series \u2013 a thrilling sprint finish against Spain\u2019s Mario Mola in Hyde Park \u2013 but finished a disappointing 52nd in Edmonton and eighth overall in the series. Advertisement…<\/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-8454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8454","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=8454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8454\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}