Jamie Riddle won his second elite men title in a fortnight after he snatched gold at the Bonaqua Africa Triathlon Cup as South Africans dominated the event at Troutbeck Resort in Nyanga on Saturday.
Riddle, fresh from another victory in Nelson Mandela Bay on March 20, headlined a clean sweep of medals by South Africa with countrymen Christiaan Stroebel and Dylan Nortje settling for silver and bronze respectively.
It was a fruitful week for South African triathletes who recorded clean sweep in junior elite men race while they took gold and silver in junior elite women category as Zimbabwean Brooklyn Tippett finished third.
The other dent was in the elite women class where Slovak Ivana Kuriackova scooped gold as Shanae Williams and Hannah Newman trailed her.
Riddle was pleased by the overall performance of South Africans at the event.
“I said this in the last race that South Triathlon is going in the right direction. There is a point where we were worried about what’s coming next for South Africa triathlon. I think in the Port Elizabeth race we also got 1, 2, 3 and today we also got 1. 2,3. There is always a race, you never know who is going to win which is good for South Africa triathlon,” he said.
The inform triathlete who is ranked third on the continent shared his sentiments on the race.
“It was a super tough race I must say I had a lot of adversity coming into the race. Today was not about how fast I could go I was just trying to pull off a win. From the go it was proper race 5 – 6 guys coming out of the water together on the bike together
“Zimbabwe is known to be the toughest probably in the world you are either going up or down and you have 2000m of altitude which is not usual in the circuit and that makes it extremely tough
“Next I am off to America and I am starting a World Tour where I will compete from race to race but I have two (upcoming) races,” Riddle said.
In the junior elite class Shaun Wolfaardt won the competition while compatriots Christian Hattingh and Francois De Villiers were second and third respectively.
Kadence Ribbink and Mia Van Der Veen finished first and second respectively in the junior women class.