Asia Triathlon Youth Championships: Hong Kong boys sweep podium, while girls’ gold decided in photo finish
- Zoe Metais edges out friend and training partner Pauline Courret by fraction of a second to take gold in the Youth Women division
- Matthew Chan beats teammates Philip Chu and Gary Wong to first place in Youth Men’s race at Plover Cove
Hong Kong dominated the Asia Triathlon Youth Championships on Sunday, winning five of the six medals up for grabs in the main races at the first international event held in the city since 2018.
There was a clean sweep of the podium in the elite boys’ race, with Matthew Chan Yui-fung leading from start to finish to win in a time of 31 minutes and 17 seconds, ahead of Philip Chu Yan-ho (31:25) and Gary Wong Ka-ho (31:44).
But the real drama of the day was in the girls’ event, where it took the judges more than an hour to decide that Zoe Metais had done just enough to edge out Pauline Courret in the race for gold.
Of the 150 triathletes from Hong Kong, India, Kazakhstan, Singapore, Thailand and Taiwan who gathered in the wet and windy conditions, India’s Prerana Sravan Kumar was the only non-Hongkonger to podium in the elite races, taking bronze behind Metais and Courret in a time of 40:51.
The Hongkongers were almost inseparable from the moment they entered the water at Tai Mei Tuk in Plover Cove, with never more than two-tenths of a second between them across the swim and transitions between the three disciplines.
Racing down the finish chute, the training partners crossed the line in 33:31 having both completed the 2.5km run in 08:22.
“We often race together and we do all our training together, so it wasn’t a surprise,” Metais said. “I actually spend more time with Pauline than I do with my parents, we train all the time and study.”
