TRIATHLON - Greer takes third in France

Whangarei triathlete Lee Greer scored a breakthrough result with a podium finish at the Auch International Triathlon in France at the weekend, edging even closer to his dream of busting into the fulltime professional ranks.
Greer, who spent the past four months working as a training partner for Northland Olympian Sam Warriner, is now based in France, where he is competing on the European triathlon circuit.
The result at the weekend underlines his promise, the 22-year-old hopes to perform well enough in Europe to gain a wildcard entry to a World Cup race next year. His effort on Saturday will help his cause, an effort that saw him join Ironman New Zealand legend Cameron Brown, who won the event, on the podium.
But the race had a bit of drama for the young Northlander, who led after the opening swim leg and made a potentially embarrassing mistake on the final run leg.
"I had a good race, nothing went wrong for once. Cameron Brown destroyed the whole field on the bike. (But) I got 450 ($950) and a massive trophy for third, which was awesome, just what the doctor ordered," Greer said.
"The race was well set up we finished around a running track. With a big crowd at the finish line I put my hands in the air, then I was told by the manager I had to run two laps. We probably got told this in briefing but that was in French. I can laugh now but at the time I was hurting," he said.
"We swam in a muddy brown river about 30 metres wide, but I got a mean start and led out of the water."
Greer managed to maintain his lead on the bike until around the 14km mark, when Brown finally caught him. Brown then powered away on the cycle leg. Greer was strong enough to hold for third place, despite battling into a headwind on the return section of the cycle leg.
Greer now plans to tackle more events in Europe before heading to Australia, where he is planning to take part in the Gold Coast Half Ironman race. "I have a race in Austria this weekend, then Serbia the weekend after, then I fly to the Gold Coast to have a break and also do the half ironman just for fun."
Cameron won the race, an Olympic distance triathlon of 1500m swim, 40km cycle and 10km run, in 1h 49.39m. Greer finished in 1h 54.25m.