Hammond quits pool to make instant splash | Wairarapa News | Local News in Wairarapa

It would be a gross under-statement to say Greytown's Hamish Hammond has made a successful start to his triathlon career.

The 21-year-old Massey University student only took up the sport in 2009 after making a name for himself as a competitive swimmer and last weekend he was a comfortable winner of the 20-24 age group title at the ITU Olympic AG Triathlon World Championships in Bejing, China.

Hammond, a former pupil of Greytown School and Rathkeale College, clocked 2h 3m 27s for the 1500m swim, 40km bike ride and 10km run and had 3m to spare from another of the Kiwis in the 33-strong field, Shaun Kavanagh. There was another 29s back to the third placegetter, South African Bradley Weiss.

While Hammond was hardly brimming with confidence going into such a testing event his success was predicted by his coach Greg O'Connor, an outstanding swimmer himself when a member of the Carterton club, and now living on Australia's Gold Coast.

In his final warm-up race in Beijing, Hammond had won his age group at what were billed the Aquathlon world champs which comprised a 2.5km run followed by a 1km swim and another 2.5km run and O'Connor had messaged him that the "double" was well within his capabilities.

"Greg told me there was no reason why I shouldn't win again and it's always nice to hear that sort of thing," Hammond said yesterday.

"I guess he's not a bad judge!"

Hammond also gives O'Connor credit for having him primed and ready for his Beijing trip. At the peak of his training it was nothing unusual for a week to include 15 to 20km of swimming, 250 to 300km of cycling and 60 to 65km of running, a heavy workload but one which provided enough variety not to be boring.

Not surprisingly, swimming is the strongest of the three disciplines for him and he has always been a more-than-useful runner as well. Cycling, however, has been a much bigger challenge and he freely concedes there is still scope for plenty of improvement in that sphere.

The world championship race went pretty much according to plan for Hammond. He started in the middle of the pack, found himself in open water early on and was the first of his age group to start the cycle. Ahead of him were two Aussies but they were in another division, not that Hammond knew that at the time.

The cycle course had some hills and, technically, was of a type probably better suited to time-trial bikes. But although Hammond was on a road bike he managed to stay with the front-runners and went into the run well poised to make a bold bid for the world title.

There, too, the course was hilly but Hammond always felt comfortable, even more so when he was informed near the finish line that he had a big margin over his nearest rival.

"It was great to hear that ... with some of the age groups being combined in the one race you could never be sure who was who," Hammond said.

Defending his world title when the championships are held in Auckland next year will be a major priority for Hammond while, in the longer term, the dream is to join the professional ranks.