Henri Schoeman | Category Archives: Continental Cup

2013 Cape Town ATU Africa Cup

Posted on 18 February, 2013 by Henri Schoeman Posted in Africa Cup, Continental Cup, General update, International experience, International racing Leave a comment

Yesterday in a beautiful sunny Blouberg I ran myself onto the 2013 ITU Africa Cup podium, behind World Ranked #5, Richard Murray and Current Junior World Champion, Wian Sullwald.

With a strong international field it could have been anyone’s game since it was a sprint distance event. It is really cool to have ITU races in South Africa with a lot of international athletes taking part. It makes racing a lot more fast and exciting without having to travel abroad.

With an 11H30 start, temperatures reached over 30 degrees and water temperature below 16 degrees with some wind.

The swim was horrible for me. The cold was just so bad it made my face, feet and hands hurt! My mouth froze into one position because my muscles were not responding. Nevertheless my brand new Huub Archimedis wetsuit did a very good job and I still got out of the water first with a comfortable margin to get through T1 and on my brand new bike.

I was hoping to see how I could “race” with my new bike compared to my old bike, but I made a mistake of not tightening my saddle enough. It was moving up and down, so I lost power and I couldn’t get into a comfortable position. I decided to wait for the chasing pack of about 13 athletes and not do anything sudden to avoid losing my saddle… however the bike rolls 100 times better!

Coming into T2 I made sure I was near the front and was 6^th into transition. Richard Murray and a German athlete had a flyer through T2, followed by Wian Sullwald, Wikus Webber, an Austrian athlete then myself. I worked to just catch up to the chasing athletes and take it relaxed up the hill. At the top they slowed down and Richard was near so I took a gutsy move and surged to close in on him. I passed the German but soon felt the after effects of a sudden attack that was a little too early and Wian caught me at 3km. I hooked onto him and with just over 1km he started picking up the pace. I hung on until about 300m then he opened a gap and I didn’t have the leg speed yet to catch up.

I am very happy with my performance. It is the first time I have had a good training block since January, recovering from a knee injury. I look forward to my next event which will be the ITU Africa Cup incorporating South African Triathlon Champs in East London next month.

Results can be found on http://www.triathlon.org/results/result/2013_cape_town_itu_sprint_triathlon_african_cup/8892

A special thanks to my support from FINIS, Huub Design, Classic Eyes, Cytomax, Future Life, and Puma. Also a big thanks to my family and girlfriend for their support and to my two coaches, Alisdair Hatfield and Joe Schoeman.

First ITU Win (ITU African Cup, Troutbeck)

Posted on 20 November, 2012 by Henri Schoeman Posted in Africa Cup, Continental Cup, Gopro Video, International racing Leave a comment

On Saturday I had my first ever ITU win in Troutbeck, Zimbabwe. It has been my most special achievement yet.

I left Durban in the early hours on Thursday and arrived in Troutbeck that night at 7.30pm. After a good dinner and sleep I woke up to a beautiful view of the lake and venue where the race was going to be. At 2000m above sea level I was out of breath just by packing my bike. I had good warm ups but felt the altitude affecting me with a sore chest and headache.

On race day I was feeling nervous because of the difficulty of the course we were racing. I made sure I had a good breakfast, fueling up for the hard race ahead and not make the same mistake as I did in Auckland a few weeks ago.

As I started warming up, thick heavy clouds came over the venue and it started pouring with rain. It would be a little dangerous as it hasn’t rained there for a long time and there was lots of oil on the roads, making it very slippery. I was very relieved that it was not sunny because it would have been a killer out there!

In the swim I went my own pace at about 60-70% of max and had a 1m 40s lead over Chris Felgate and Rudolf Naude. The bike course was tough, riding 3.3km uphill and back down again to complete that lap 6 times. I started the first lap easy to see what conditions the roads were in. I saw Felgate and Naude closed down on me so I picked up the pace going harder every lap and they only managed to put a 30s dent into my lead while working together. This put me with a 1m 10s lead going into the tough hilly run course. I started hard and just hoped that I wouldn’t die because I really wanted a win here. After every lap I felt I was getting faster and I didn’t feel any fatigue, so the last lap I really pushed myself and won the race with a 3m 46s lead over Felgate and 5m 47s over Naude.

My splits for the race are as follows:
Swim – 00:17:52
T1 – 00:00:49
Bike – 01:11:37
T2 – 00:00:35
Run – 00:33:22

I was really happy that I had such a strong performance with one of my proudest wins yet.

It was an honor racing Zimbabwean Legend Chris Felgate over the past couple years as well in this race as it was his last International race. He has retired from competitive triathlon.

I would like to give a huge thanks to Triathlon Zimbabwe for welcoming us and treating the athletes so well. I felt very honored and special to be a part of the race and competing. I felt that the smooth running and good organization of the event all contributed to my win at the end.

I would also like to thank my sponsors FINIS, Cytomax and Future Life as well as my family and girlfriend for their great support.

I will have a video from the race ready as soon I can so watch this space for an update. It will be a special one!

My next and last race of the year is in Vanderbijl Park for the final of the BSG Triathlon Series.

Moving Forward

Posted on 13 June, 2012 by Henri Schoeman Posted in Continental Cup, General update, International racing, World Cup Leave a comment

With this update I can happily say that I have been given the opportunity to tour Europe next month with the U23 and Junior squads for SA. I will be racing in the 2012 Holten ITU Triathlon Premium European Cup on the 7^th July with a very competitive field and on the 14^th July I will compete in my first World Cup event in Tiszaujvaros, Hungary. This World Cup event is a very strong field with the likes of Jonny Brownlee and many others. This event is different from any usual triathlon. It will consist of 3 semi-final heats on the Saturday and then a certain amount of the top placed athletes will go through to race the final the next day. The race distance will be half Olympic distance for both days.

Click on the links for the start list on triathlon.org:

Premium European Cup in Holten, Netherlands

World Cup in Tiszaujvaros, Hungary

It is two very good races to compete in and will use this opportunity to soak up as much experience as I can on the international scene and see where I am against the best in the World at this point in time. I am very excited as training has been going very well and possibly in the best form I have ever been in and still improving from week to week in training.

Other news in terms of sponsors is that I will not be competing for Team Future Life any longer. I would like to thank Glen Gore who managed the team and was a great help to me over the past few years getting me products, kit, gear etc. Its time to move on to more serious things as I will be competing mainly for FINIS and then also have a few other sponsors to give me the best possible experience in triathlon.