RACING TAURANGA HALF The Big Race

“I’m still in a little bit of disbelief,” Clarke told TQ after stopping the clock at 4:07:48, 2mins 24sec ahead of Watkinson with Berry third a further 33secs adrift.

“I think sometimes before I kind of felt that I was a swimmer and an okay biker and an average runner. I don’t know, you’ve kind of got to have those moments to believe in yourself and I went actually no, I’m actually up there with the best in the world, I’m a professional athlete, this is my job and I’m not just a fill in, I’m competitive.”

Clarke’s 1:26:09 split for the 21km run, including two loops of the Mount base track, underscored that new-found belief. It was more than 2mins 30s faster than Watkinson and put nearly three minutes on Berry.

It’s amazing the confidence shot performances like 8th at the PTO U.S. Open in Dallas and 17th on debut in Kona can do for you. But the secret sauce proved to be Clarke’s build-up in Wanaka, the same lung and leg busting mountain terrain Currie uses to fine tune his huge aerobic engine.

“I have been based in Wanaka lately so have been running a lot in the local trails, which helped me round the undulating base track today, and my overall strength on the run,” Clarke said.

“This is my best New Zealand race by far.”

Watkinson squeezed the Tauranga Half into her schedule between finishing 7th and 10th in the Road Race and Individual Time Trial at the

AusCycle Nationals and Australia Day (Jan. 26) surgery on the elbow she broke during a bike crash in Europe mid 2022.

Afterwards, she was singing from a similar song sheet to Moody, glad to be part of a strong era of elite women’s racing.

“It’s awesome that we’ve got three really good Kiwi girls on the start line,” the 31-year-old said.

“The whole idea of racing at this time of the year is to make ourselves better so I’m glad it was tight even though it hurt like hell. Yeah, the PTO races, 70.3 Worlds, that winter period for us will be huge. That’s the target but definitely don’t discount these races, they’re great to have on the calendar.”

Also like Moody, the last place on the women’s podium went to Berry. Fittingly, the 31-year-old also enjoyed the last word on the state of the Kiwi long distance nation too.

“I actually think we all raced really well today. Bec’s had an amazing race, the best race I’ve ever seen her have and so that’s really cool,” said Berry.

“Obviously when I go up against these girls I aways want to win, and when the gun goes off it’s all on but now we’ve crossed the finish line it’s kind of cool to see fellow Kiwis progressing as well.

“Hopefully we can all go overseas later this year and show what the Kiwis can do.”

If RaceRanger is a contemporary, triathlon take on the old Kiwi No.8 wire mentality, Berry perhaps evoked another old-school Kiwi memory, the patriotic call to “Give ‘em a Taste of Kiwi”.

It’s a chant set to reverberate around the world, metaphorically at least in 2023, perhaps even silencing that Norwegian Express for a bit.