The Generation Homes Women's Triathlon: Fish, Tisch

Rebecca Newland. Photo/George Novak

The Generation Homes Women's Triathlon team event winners had skills that were a handful and a name that was a mouthful.

Fish and Tisch, formed in the final two weeks before the event, ran away easy winners in the form of 10-year-old Millie Tisch, to a raucous reception on a picture postcard morning at Pilot Bay yesterday.

It was a pure moment of sporting joy above reproach - until, that is, you look a little closer and see the fingerprints of national representative Jo Tisch all over it.

The clue, as is often the case with such mysteries, is in the title.

The Tisch part is obvious enough, with young 800m Colgate Games bronze medallist Millie and mother Nicola comprising two-thirds of the winning combination.

The fish, as it turns out, due to the influence of Nicola's sister-in-law Jo, was national representative Rebecca Kingsford, who flat out smashed the field in the swim leg to build a lead her teammates scrapped hard to preserve.

Holding on was no mean feat. Nicola rode 10km on a recently borrowed bike as part of her recovery from a foot operation, while Millie paced herself beautifully over the 4km distance to pull off the popular finish.

"It was a good option for me to just do the bike and I got Millie to do the run," Nicola said.

"I said to Jo that if she could get us a good swimmer, it would help. I didn't expect that good a swimmer!"

Matua School pupil Millie, who was taking part in her fifth triathlon, did not mind the step up in distance and was mobbed by well-wishers after prize-giving concluded. The event was run in a relaxed atmosphere, with a number of women taking part in a triathlon for the first time.

"It was pretty cool and really well organised. Jo does big triathlons all the time and was basically just trying to inspire us," Nicola said.

"She basically registered us before we could say no. You do feel a lot better after exercising. I've only been training for two weeks and I can already feel it."

Results (Top 15 overall): 1 Jol McGarvey (30-39), 45:47; 2 Wendy Boyce (30-39), 46:55; 3 Micaela Ashford (under-19), 46:58; 4 Amanda Verhoevven (30-39), 47:10; 5 Hester Sutherland-Stacey (20-29), 47:40; 6 Leisenjobe Jobe (40-49), 47:54; 7 Pip White (30-39), 48:00; 8 Katrina Shores (30-39), 48:11; 9 Julia Trezise-Conroy (20-29), 48:27; 10 Andrea Braithwaite (30-39), 48:42; 11 Paulette Medland (30-39), 48:49; 12 Anneke Steenkamp (20-29), 48:51; 13 Nikki Brooks (40-49), 48:58; 14 Helen Lamont (40-49), 49:05; 15 Jo Blackwood (40-49), 49:06.