Sisson looking for swim solutions to back his blistering run speed

Ryan Sissons knows what he is capable of and his 10km run split at the ITU World Triathlon Series race in Yokohama yesterday again hinted at it, but the 24 year old Aucklander is again cooling his heels after a less than satisfactory swim.

Sissons ran home with the 4th fastest run split yesterday, for the first time in his career dipping under 30 minutes with a 29:58 run. In fact he had the fastest final 5km of the race, quicker than the entire field, including Jonathan Brownlee and Javier Gomez who won gold and silver.

The issue was not the run, it rarely has been, for Sissons the problem so far this season has been the swim, and again yesterday he exited the water too far back from the leaders to have an impact on the final result.

“Again, it is never an easy race when you come out of the water over a minute behind of the leaders on a course like that and with the athletes in the break it was always going to be a tough day after that,” said Sissons.

“It is not as if I am not trying, obviously something isn’t working on the swim at the moment, it is incredibly frustrating when I know I can put the other parts of the race together quite nicely but coming out of the water that far back it is never going to do it justice.”

Sissons will continue to work hard with his coaching and support team within the Tri NZ HP Programme to improve the swim and his overall performance.

“I will talk to my coaching team and the support team this week in regards what needs to be done and why I am not swimming well. Is it the wetsuit factor? I swam well in Auckland without a wetsuit and the last two races have been poor with a wetsuit. Is it that? To be honest I don’t know at the moment.

“I’m going to Europe now and it will clearly be a swim focus for the next few weeks or months because if I get that part of my game right I am in for a shot.”

Sissons was loathe to focus on the run given it is just one part of the race, but he does take his run form as a positive going into the rest of the season.

“Going into the run I did push quite hard, I’d like to say I can go faster and I think I can, it is great to be going under 30 minutes for the first time and I did put together the run quite well. The second 5km was really good. I know have the speed and the legs, I just need to keep on trucking along. I can only get better over time.”

Sissons will head to Europe now to continue training and preparation for further rounds in the World Triathlon Series, members of the Tri NZ HP squad will base themselves in Spain before the next round of the series in Madrid on June 1st and 2nd.

Martin Van Barneveld was the only other Kiwi to race yesterday, the Wellington athlete coming home in 23rd place, an improvement on his first up effort in Auckland last month.

Van Barneveld will head back to Wellington to return to training before considering his next race.

For complete results from Yokohama, click here

For the latest ITU World Triathlon Series rankings, click here