Far North Flash girls dominant in Napier

Grace Rutherford, Jurney Blair, Crystal Wikaira and Trinity Rule represented the Far North Flash multisports club at the Iron Maori Rangatahi triathlon in Napier last weekend.

Four local athletes stood out for the Kaitaia-based Far North Flash Junior team at the Iron Maori Rangatahi in Napier on Saturday.

They were Grace Rutherford (age 13, from Kaitaia Intermediate School), Jurney Blair (15, Pukemiro), Crystal Wikaira (12, KIS) and Trinity Rule (11, KPS).

All four raced as individuals at the annual youth triathlon designed for girls and boys aged from 13 to 17 and comprising of a 500m swim, 7km cycle ride and a 3km run.

Proud Far North Flash coach Phill Gibbs said it was a dominant performance by all four FNF girls which saw them claiming four of the top five spots in the event.

"It was an awesome and successful weekend," he said.

Jurney was first out of the water followed closely by Crystal with both enjoying a clean transition to head in to the cycling leg together. From there, Crystal started the run with a handy lead over Jurney who suffered a slightly messier transition into the run.

Jurney set out to try and chase her teammate down, Phil noted.

"It was only time to see who would come out on top as they had built up a good lead on Grace who was in third place at the beginning of her run. After a nervous 17 minute wait and with eyes strained on the distance the first to reappear was Jurney who ran past Crystal into first place and overall victory by a margin of only 25 metres.

"It was a hard fought win and well deserved," Phil said, adding both girls embraced at the finish to acknowledge each other's efforts.

A little further back Grace was passed by another competitor so eventually finished fourth while a hard charging Trinity ran through the field to claim fifth place.

The quartet's results at this year's event were a reflection of the countless hours of training for the Iron Maori Rangatahi tri, and represented deja vu of sorts for Gibbs who coached another young athlete to victory in the same event two years ago.

He was over the moon with the girls' respective performances and how they represented the club, their families and the Far North.