No more bridesmaid finish for Japanese road racer Masauki Matsumaru this time.<\/p>\n
After a runner-up finish in 2007 and 2008, Matsumaru won the 20th Tagaman Triathlon, stunning XTERRA Saipan winner Sam Gardner and dethroned Tagaman champion Andrew Noble in Saturday\u2019s race.<\/p>\n
The Japanese pro completed the 1.5-kilometer swim leg, 60-km road bike race, and 15-km run part in two hours, 59 minutes, 41 seconds to earn his first Tagaman win after four years of participating in Micronesia\u2019s longest-running triathlon.<\/p>\n
Matsumaru\u2019s victory last weekend also broke Japan\u2019s 10-year title drought in the Tagaman. The last time a Japanese bet won in Tagaman was in 1998 with Hideya Miyazuka beating compatriot Yuji Fujiwara and New Zealand\u2019s Stephen Farrell.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was great to finally win Tagaman. I had a good race today,\u201d said Matsumaru, who finished the race more than two minutes ahead of Gardner of the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n
The Japanese triathlete was about four minutes ahead of Gardner in the swim leg with Matsumaru posting 26:51 against the latter\u2019s 30:47. Gardner had a better time in the bike portion with his 1:30:07. Matsumaru tallied 1:32:14 in the bike leg, but came to the bike-run transition area more than a minute ahead of Gardner.<\/p>\n
The newly crowned Tagaman Triathlon champion had already started the run leg at the back of Hyatt Regency Saipan at Micro Beach when Gardner reached the transition area. The two triathletes had identical times in the run leg (58:56), preserving Matsumaru\u2019s victory.<\/p>\n
Gardner believed fatigue finally caught up with him after the long race.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been here for more than three weeks, biking and running from south to north. I really got tired, my legs were cramping. I just continued running and paced myself, as I don\u2019t want to get into trouble heading home,\u201d said Gardner, who submitted a total time of 3:02:03.<\/p>\n
Noble was about more than a minute behind Matsumaru and Gardner in the run portion and settled for third overall. The Aussie bet was the first pro out of the Micro Beach waters, timing in at 26:49 and third in the bike (1:36:95) for a total time of 3:04:53.<\/p>\n
Noble\u2019s 2009 time was about 10 minutes slower than his 2008 clocking of (2:54:25) when he beat Matsumaru, who curiously had a faster time last year (2:56:57).<\/p>\n
Renata Bucher\u2019s 2008 time (3:25:34) was also better than her 2009 time (3:28:18). But she still topped the women\u2019s division, easily beating Saipan bet and crowd favorite Mieko Carey (3:32:58).<\/p>\n
Carey may have won only second place in the women\u2019s division, but she is ranked No. 1 for the effort she exerted in the race. Carey competed in Tagaman with broken ribs, which she sustained during a bike crash in last week\u2019s XTERRA Saipan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you are out there, doing the race, you tend to forget the pain. You just keep pushing yourself until you reach the finish line,\u201d Carey said.<\/p>\n
Just like what happened in XTERRA Saipan, Bucher crossed the Tagaman finish line at Micro Beach uncontested.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough I did not beat my time in 2008, I had a smooth race this year. I just paced myself and enjoyed cruising the beautiful island of Saipan, again,\u201d said Bucher, who won her second title in four Tagaman appearances.<\/p>\n
Bucher was runner-up to Julie Dibens in 2007 and to Jamie Whitmore in 2005. Dibens could not make it to this year\u2019s Tagaman, as she had to leave after XTERRA Saipan to prepare for a race in Florida, while Whitmore is still recovering from an illness.<\/p>\n
In place of Dibens and Whitmore were one female triathlete each from the U.K. and Japan, and Pacific Islands Club\u2019s Kimiko Hasegawa.<\/p>\n
Japan\u2019s Noriko Takano finished third (3:39:50), followed by U.K.\u2019s Susan Blackett (3:42:55), and Hasegawa (4:20:36).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
No more bridesmaid finish for Japanese road racer Masauki Matsumaru this time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}