Hong Kong’s triathlete association ‘found out’ by poor junior results, coach says
Senior team head coach Andrew Wright wants policy change after under-23 and junior squad return one medal from Asian Championships
Hong Kong’s triathletes put in one of their worst performances “in a long time” at last weekend’s Asia junior and under-23 championships, and senior team head coach Andrew Wright believes the city’s training policies are to blame.
The city’s squad managed just one medal from a series of races in Wan Chai, and ahead of Saturday’s World Cup stop in Haikou, a “pretty disappointed” Wright said he hoped the sub-par displays would be a catalyst for change at the Triathlon Association of Hong Kong, China.
Hong Kong claimed mixed relay bronze, but Cade Wright in fifth and sixth-placed Nick Yip Tak-long were the best female and male under-23 individual performers respectively.
Andy Wong Nok-hei, meanwhile, finished fourth in the men’s junior event, having had to compete in an interschool 5km race three days earlier.
“That race stung him [Wong] … from two weeks before a major championships we should be telling schools they have to withdraw athletes,” Wright said, adding the 18-year-old had been sent to “way too many international events” last year.
According to Wright, unnecessary travel, combined with too many events at home, meant the younger triathletes’ training was suffering and as a result they “can’t perform at their best when it counts”.