Triathlon: Top 10 placings for Hewitt and Docherty

New Zealand's Andrea Hewitt and Bevan Docherty posted top 10 results in today's world championship series triathlon in Seoul, Korea.

Hewitt was fifth and multiple Olympic medallist Docherty seventh in the second round of the series.

Hewitt could not match an incredible burst over the final 300m from winner Daniela Ryf as the Swiss athlete claimed her first series victory.

The result saw Hewitt drop one spot to third on the overall standings after two races, with last month's Sydney winner Barbara Riveros, of Chile, finishing second and Australian Emma Moffatt repeating her third placing from that race to move ahead of Hewitt.

Of the other New Zealanders, Debbie Tanner was 12th, Kate McIlroy 18th and Nicky Samuels 24th.

Docherty, who won the men's race in Sydney, finished in a time of one hour 52 minutes 39 seconds, 50sec behind the winner, Germany's Jan Frodeno, the 2008 Olympic Games gold medallist.

Battling a head cold, he was comfortably the leading New Zealander, with Kris Gemmell next best in 28th after leading off the bike followed by Martin van Barneveld in 37th place.

Docherty now sits second in the series standings, behind Russian Alexander Brukhankov, who finished fifth today.

In the women's race, Briton Kerry Lang and Americans Sarah Haskins and Hayley Peirsol broke away on the swim to lead by 40 seconds heading out on to the bike.

Hewitt and Tanner exited the water in the main chase group and quickly settled into their work on the bike, chasing down the leaders.

Peirsol was the first to crack, being caught by the chasers and soon Lang and Haskins suffered the same fate on a tight and technical eight-lap bike course as a lead group of 18 took shape, with McIlroy the only New Zealanders not among them as she found herself one minute back after three laps.

McIlroy was in good company, though, with 2008 Beijing Olympic champion Emma Snowsill, of Australia, and Switzerland's Nicole Spirig helping to close the gap on the leaders with each passing lap, eventually joining the leaders on lap six to form a group of 28 who rode together for the remainder of the ride.

Moffatt was quick to assert her dominance on the run but over the second half of the run a chase group of six, including Hewitt, Riveros and Ryf, closed the gap which at one point was out to 12sec.

Riveros and Hewitt broke clear and drew alongside Moffatt with 1km remaining, with 4sec back to the chasers, before Ryf surged over the final 500m to pass Hewitt and then Moffatt and Riveros for a stunning first win at this level.

Hewitt had emptied the tank and simply had no answer once in sight of the finish line and faded to fifth as Spirig grabbed fourth place in the final 20m.

Leading results:-

Elite women: Daniela Ryf (Switzerland) 2hr 1min 00sec 1, Barbara Riveros (Chile) 2:01.02 2, Emma Moffatt (Australia) 2:01.04 3, Nicole Spirig (Switzerland) 2:01.05 4, Andrea Hewitt (NZ) 2:01.06 5. Also: Debbie Tanner (NZ) 2:02.27 12, Kate McIlroy (NZ) 2:03:03 18, Nicky Samuels (NZ) 2:04.21 24.

Elite men: Jan Frodeno (Germany) 1:51.49 1, Courtney Atkinson (Australia) 1:51.49 2, Brad Kahlefeldt (Australia) 1:52.17 3, Steffen Justus (Germany) 1:52.21 4, Alexander Brukhankov (Russia) 1:52.28 5. Also: Bevan Docherty (NZ) 1:52.39 7, Kris Gemmell (NZ) 1:54.19 28, Martin van Barneveld (NZ) 1:54.57 37.

- NZPA