Briton hailed as triathlon king

New Zealand triathlete Kris Gemmell hailed the new star of the sport as a scorching pace saw him tipped off the world championship podium yesterday.

Briton Alistair Brownlee, 21, stormed away with the final race at Southport, beating Spain's Javier Gomez by six seconds to seal the overall title in a canter.

Gemmell was third overall entering yesterday's race and had a slim chance of stealing the title, but faded to 17th at the finish, one minute 26 seconds adrift of the winner.

German Maik Petzold finished fourth to claim third spot in the series, behind Brownlee and Gomez.

Gemmell, who put himself in contention with podium finishes in London and Yokohama in the previous two rounds, had nothing but praise for the young Briton, who won all his five races this year.

"It was real fast. I struggled all week with a bit of a cough but that's no excuse. Those guys were just flying," Gemmell said.

"I felt like I ran pretty well, I struggled for the first bit, then I got into a good rhythm, but once you're 20s behind ... it's just another level and we have to go back to the drawing board, change our training and work out how we can keep up with the little fella."

New Zealand's Olympic medallist Bevan Docherty, who was 11th in the standings before yesterday's race after an illness-plagued year, finished 29th in a time of 1h 47m 25s.

The final came down to the run after the main contenders finished the 40km cycle leg in a bunch behind several lower-ranked breakaways.

Brownlee stalked the leaders and, with defending champion Gomez trying to keep pace, the Yorkshireman quickly put the race beyond doubt to win in a blistering 1h 44m 51s.

"I was in front of Alistair and he came past me after 600m [on the run] and it was just an insane pace," Gemmell said.

"They accelerated at about 5km and I had a bad patch for 1km then that's it, you get dropped and you're on your own. You finish 16th or 17th and you run nearly 30 minutes and you're still a long way behind."

Of the other New Zealanders, Clark Ellice was 21st and Martin van Barneveld 41st.

There was drama for another New Zealander, 51st-ranked James Alvery, who crashed out on the bike leg and was later nursing scrapes and bruises.

Andrea Hewitt will now carry New Zealand's hopes in the women's race today, as she sits third overall, with an outside chance of winning the overall title.

- NZPA