Head coach Andrew Wright has warned the leading Hong Kong male triathletes they have six months to make significant running improvements, or risk waving goodbye to National Games glory.
None of the city’s men or women met the Games selection criteria at Saturday’s Chengdu World Triathlon Cup, where Jason Ng Tai-long’s 26th place was the best of it for Hong Kong.
Wright said he will investigate why Oscar Coggins was off-colour, after the Tokyo Olympian recorded a heart rate 30-beats-per-minute lower than in his two previous races, and “blew to pieces” on the running leg before a 40th-place finish.
Robin Elg, who was hoping to receive his passport in time to compete in November’s Games, finished 28th – six seconds slower than Ng’s time of one hour, 41 minutes and 35 seconds.
“Robin was our stand-out performer,” Wright said. “He ran a big personal best after coming back from a stress fracture. He’d have probably been top-20 if the race hadn’t come together on the bike, which was a big disadvantage for him, because he’s a swim-biker.”
Only one Chinese athlete, 16th-placed Fan Junjie crossed ahead of Ng and Elg, in a race won by 20-year-old Reese Vannerson, of the USA, on his Olympic-distance debut.