Swimming news: Australian Emma Moffatt triumphs at 2010 Dextro Energy Triathlon Budapest
Australian swimmer Emma Moffatt won the women’s elite world title, known as the 2010 Dextro Energy Triathlon in Budapest on Sunday, the 12th of September. Here at the Hungarian capital, the 29-year-old swimmer finished in the second place in the Grand Final behind her counterpart Emma Snowsill. This victory of the Australian athlete led her to become the best Australian swimmer in the Australian rankings.
Budapest was the most significant meet for Emma this year, since she could not win any of the rounds that she swam in Madrid, Sydney, Seoul, London, Hamburg, and Kitzbuhel. Her performance in Budapest was very consistent, ambitious and impressive. Overall also she is being considered the most consistent triathlete in the year 2010.
At the end of the swimming season 2010, the Australian swimmer had 3,806 points, which were more than that of the Swiss athlete Nicola Spirig. Nicola finished the season with 3,413 points. The third place, in terms of points, was grabbed by the Swedish swimmer Lisa Norden with the score being 3,390 points.
In the overall rankings of the year 2010 the fourth and fifth place finishers were Helen Jenkins and Paula Findlay. The former swimmer was from Great Britain and had a total of 3,184 points, while the latter is a Canadian swimmer and finished with 3,016 points. Those who finished in the top ten rankings included Andrea Hewitt from New Zealand (sixth position), Kate Roberts from South Africa (seventh position), Vicky Holland from Great Britain (eighth position), Mariko Adachi from Japan (ninth position) and Laura Bennett (tenth position).
Andrea Hewitt from New Zealand was at the second spot in the beginning of the Grand Final, but she declined to the sixth position with 2877 points after she finished in the 22nd place in the championships that took place in Budapest. The winner of the Grand Final, who finished ahead of Emma Moffat started the Grand Final at Budapest with the 24th position. She has been the world champion in the years 2003, 2005 and 2006. She has to her credit list the victory of a gold medal in the 2008 Summer Olympics at Beijing. She won the race at the Grand Final in Budapest with a time of 1 minute and 49.43 seconds.
It took Emma a lot of nerves and effort to win the second place, without which she would have been unsuccessful to earn the title. She struggled through the waters against six other strong women swimmers. She could not afford to finish below the fourth position, and at the end of the fierce battle for the second spot, Emma managed to get that spot and also the title. She held off her main competitors Spirig and Norden in just the last 50 metres of the race. At the end of the race, the title winner said that she knew that it would not be possible for her to finish at the first spot because Snowsill is a very strong swimmer. She also added that she had a great time swimming with some of the most talented and competitive swimmers. Moffat was just 1.44 seconds later than Snowsill. Spirig, who finished at the third place, was the runner-up to the winner in the London meet, while the fourth place finisher Norden won the Hamburg round and came second in the Kitzbuhel meet.
The Budapest rankings from the fifth to the tenth positions were taken by Findlay, Holland, Jenkins, Bennett, Carole Peon and Juri Ide respectively. Carole was from France, while Juri is a Japanese swimmer.
At the conclusion of the season, Snowsill said that this year the rounds were very hard for her, since she had been out of practise for about five months. And because she was recovering from an injury, she had a tough time developing and maintaining her strength in the pool. She also revealed that swimming is something she worked her heart and soul at. As a finishing remark, she said that she likes to compete in the European meets as compared to the other championships and that she is satisfied to have participated in such a high level competition.
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