Luxford and Viennot Kick-off Their 2016 Race Season

While the Australian Luxford resides in Melbourne and is familiar with the region, Frenchman Viennot chose Australia as his winter training base for the 2016 season. Both seem to have taken advantage of the good conditions that the Australian summer has to offer showing strong performances early in the year.

Cyril Viennot had an average start to the day, losing almost 2 minutes on the fastest athletes during the swim. He then kicked back with the third fastest bike split of the day that saw him enter T2 behind the two leaders. With a strong run, the Frenchman was able to get past Josh Amberger for second place. The eventual winner Jake Montgomery, however, was able to hold off the fast charging Viennot who took second place with a total time of 3:53:14h. The 6th place finisher of the 2015 edition of the IM World Championships will line up in less than one month time at the IM New Zealand in order to validate his 2016 spot at the World Championships. Viennot will be confident in his form after a very strong start to the 2016 race season. 

Annabel Luxford started the race with a second-best swim split right behind Radka Vodickova who exited the water in first place. On the bike Luxford soon charged into the lead and started to pull away from Vodickova. Mel Hauschildt was the only athlete who covered the 90k bike leg faster than Luxford and the two athletes entered T2 together. On the run it was Hauschildt who set the pace right from the start and Luxford settled for her own pace. With a solid run, Luxford was able to hold off a fast charging Radka Vodickova who completed the female podium of the day.