Moodie steeling himself for more ironman success

Hawke's Bay ironman Daniel Moodie will take a near-invincible record into this weekend's Lion Foundation Surf League but that's only half his battle.
The 21-year-old surf lifesaver hasn't lost a major ironman race in New Zealand for nearly three seasons, capturing a third consecutive national title in Whakatane last year and winning the ironman races each day at the Surf League for the past two seasons.
This year, however, he doesn't just want to win - he wants to prove to himself his move across the Tasman has been worth every drop of sweat and agonising training session, since he joined the powerful Northcliffe club in Queensland in March last year.
“I made the decision to move to Australia to be able to train with the best guys around," Moodie said.
“I loved training and coaching at Westshore but I needed to be challenged and the best place to do that is Australia amongst guys like Shannon Eckstein and Zane Holmes."
Northcliffe has had a stranglehold on the Australian titles for the last three years and is under the guidance of current Australian surf sports coach of the year Pat O’Keefe. The training is as intense as the racing, which suits Moodie perfectly.
“There’ll be training sessions where I’m among current and former world ironman champions, and we’ll all be pushing each other to go harder and faster – if you drop off someone’s wake you will know all about it.”
He won't have things all his own way this weekend, however - at least 20 other young Kiwis competing this weekend have based themselves in Australia during the pre-season to take advantage of the white-hot competition on offer there.
They include ironman contenders, brothers Mike and Dan Janes (Gisborne) and Taranaki's rising talent Daniel Nelson.
And Moodie's first competitive outing back in New Zealand since claiming his third national title is only one of the features of this year's provincial surf lifesaving showpiece, which pits eight New zealand regions against each other over 17 events each day.
Olympic triathlete Andrea Hewitt is back competing for Canterbury, after helping the province to four consecutive titles from 1999 to 2002, while top New Zealand butterfly swimmer Andy McMillan will turn out for Otago.
On the beach, world beach flags and sprint champion Ben Willis (Wellington) will have to stave off the twin threats of in-form Paul Cracroft-Wilson (Taranaki) and three-time world flags champion Morgan Foster (Canterbury).
Cracroft-Wilson's Taranaki team are seeking their first-ever title in the 15-year history of the event, but the team is sweating on the availability of New Zealand captain Glenn Anderson, who injured an ankle at training last week.
Anderson is gunning for an extraordinary treble, after helping Bay of Plenty triumph last year and winning with his native Gisborne in 2007.
The closest Taranaki has come in the past was a pair of second-placings, in 2002 and 2006.
Hawke's Bay, meanwhile, have also yet to taste success, though Moodie was in the under-19 team that won in 2007. He's also got current New Zealand ironwoman champion Nikki Cox as a teammate this weekend, and has come into some withering form in the last few months.
After narrowly missing out on qualifying for the lucrative Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain Ironman Series just before Christmas, Moodie has been competing at various Queensland state carnivals to sharpen his race pace - two weeks ago he finished second to ironman legend Dean Mercer and ahead of current Kellogg’s competitors Matt Poole, James Stuart and Luke Nisbet.
Now his main focus is defending his Surf League ironman crown and gunning for a fourth straight national title, somehting that hasn't been done since one Cory Hutchings achieved it on the way to his record tally of 11.
“I’m looking forward to coming home to represent Hawke’s Bay in the Surf League because it’s an awesome team event and I hope we do well," Moodie explained. "But I'm already looking ahead to defending that national title - guys like Glenn (Anderson) and Matt (Sutton) have been racing really well lately so I will have to bring my top game."