Maddie Boon shook off a massive training load to take out today's feature ironwoman race at the Central Regional surf lifesaving championships at Taranaki's Oakura Beach, which doubled as the second round of the new Sonic Surf race national series.
Just a day after returning from three weeks on theGold Coast, the Mairangi Bay club member blew the field apart with a superb ski leg, heading off two-time national champion Nikki Cox and Papamoa teenager Natalie Peat.
In windy, stormy conditions at the west coast beach, 21-year-old Boon admitted her preparation wasn't ideal for today's carnival and the benefits of her gruelling trip to the star-studded Northcliffe club on the Gold Coast might still be some weeks away.
"I absolutely smashed myself in Aussie, to the point I picked up a head cold in the last week - we were training upwards of five hours a day and swimming around 30km a week," Boon said. "It was really tiring but enormously beneficial, especially training alongside Nutri-Grain stars like Liz Pluimers and Courtney Handcock - you just can't get any better than that. I had a few mixed results today and the ironman was definitely the best of them - I only flew back in yesterday and I guess I was still showing the effects of three really hard weeks of training."
Like Boon, Midway teenager Cory Taylor saved his best performance for the open ironman, after struggling in his board and ski races.
The 18-year-old lost the ironman final at the first round of the series in Whangamata before Christmas when he fell off a wave but he wasn't about to make the same mistake twice, outsprinting New Zealand team veteran Glenn Anderson in a thrilling finish.
"He was a wave ahead in the swim leg but I managed to catch him in transition and we stuck together through the ski and the board legs," Taylor said. "In the end, it came to a sprint up the beach - he just kept hanging on and wouldn't give up so I was pretty lucky to get it on the line. I knew I had to pull something out in the ironman, just so it wasn't a total wasted trip."
Lyall Bay's Tyler Maxwell was third in another impressive teenage showing, while Anderson took out the surf race, ahead of St Clair's Adam Simpson, and anchored New Plymouth Old Boys' open taplin win.
