Rio Olympics: Water quality passes test

Top-ranked athlete Andrea Hewitt did not finish the race. Photo / Nick Reed

So far, so good; not the outcome of the Rio Olympic triathlon test event yesterday but the health of the country's leading athlete.

New Zealand triathletes have finished well off the pace at the test event held at next year's Olympic venue. The top-ranked athlete, Andrea Hewitt, did not finish the race.

She was seventh going into the final run leg but withdrew with blisters. Simone Ackermann was 18th and Rebecca Clarke 56th in a race won by American world No1 Gwen Jorgensen.

Ryan Sissons was 19th in the men's race, 2min 18s behind the winner, Spain's champion athlete Javier Gomez in 1h 48min 26s.

Gomez and France's Vincent Luis, who finished second, qualified their countries for the Olympics, while Jorgensen and fourth-placed American Sarah True qualified as the US representatives at the Games.

However, given the serious level of concern over the quality of water in Rio - and unlike sailing and rowing, triathlon is a full immersion sport - heavy attention focused on the water quality and Hewitt emerged saying she felt good despite ingesting some of the salt water.

"There's lakes around here with rubbish but I couldn't see anything in the sea," Hewitt, fourth on the world series rankings, said.

"I would have found out by now if I had something. It's a pretty nice beach here at Copacabana; it seems as clean as any other beach."