Half distance races that end in small differences and thus exciting finishes are no exception. However, it doesn’t often get as exciting as during the New Zealand Tauranga Half: Kyle Smith, Braden Currie and Jack Moody – all New Zealand athletes – finished within just over half a minute of each other.
In the end it was Smith who was the strongest and crossed the finish line first with a finishing time of 3:49:43hr. He didn’t have much leeway, because Currie, thanks to a running time of 1:13:46hr, ran almost four minutes faster than the eventual winner and thus approached him by ten seconds: with a final time of 3:39:53hr Currie came in second. Moody ran even harder than Currie, needed only 1:10:53hr for his concluding half marathon and thus claimed, thanks to a finishing time of 3:40:19hr, the bronze.
In the women’s race it was a little bit less exciting: Teresa Adam was up front almost right away from start, made the biggest difference on the bike and was then able to run to victory: she claimed the gold in a time of 3:57:01hr. Hannah Wells claimed silver with a finishing time of 4:01:46hr and far behind her Rebecca Clarke took the bronze medal after 4:15:14hr.
