Impressive outing at second Asian Cup for Wright 

It was not the finish he aimed for, but Matthew Wright did not leave disappointed as he has jumped from a 308th ranking to 140th in the world. Just over a week after his impressive first-place finish at the Aqaba cup in Jordan, Wright travelled south with hopes of landing on the podium but fell short at the 2022 Samarkand Asian Triathlon Cup in Uzbekistan on October 8.   

Wright suited up for his second event in the space of a week against a pool of world-ranked competitors at the Silk Road Tourist Center in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The race started with a 1500m swim which saw Wright sprinting out of the water in 13th place in a closely knit pack of 15 guys who were only separated by a handful of seconds. Home team athlete and super swimmer Aleksandr Kurishov and lead swimmer from the last meet in Aqaba, Poland’s Maciej Bruzdziak, made an early break from the pack to reach the bike transition area first. However, a large group of 30 athletes, almost the entire field, gathered on the bikes quickly to erase the lead created for the five-lap 40km bike course. After just one lap into the bike leg, the two lead swimmers were swallowed into the large group and after a few failed attempts to break away by other athletes, the group remained together for the rest of the fast and flat bike leg, to force a tight race heading into the run. 

With an impressive bike leg, Wright led the large group into the second transition and was out onto the run course in first position.  He was quickly followed by Kurt Wesley of Australia, Luxembourg’s Gregor Payet, 2021 Tokyo Olympian Felix Duchampt from Romania and eventual winner, Spain’s David Cantero De Campo.  Duchampt and De Campo set a blistering pace, which made it challenging for Wright to keep up, especially with last week’s gold medal racing performance, which eventually took a toll on his body, forcing him to drop back.  

Fighting hard to stay close behind the lead group, Wright found himself dropping further back into sixth position as he was overtaken by Bob Haller from Luxembourg and Ukrainian Vitali Vorontsov halfway through the 10km run.  Hot on the heels of Wright and challenging for the sixth spot, was last week’s bronze medal winner Jason Tai Long Ng from Honk Kong. However, Wright was determined to finish strongly and managed to outsprint NG to hold on to sixth position in one min and 18 seconds behind the Spanish winner. 

With this result, Wright catapults into the top 150 of the World Triathlon rankings, where he now sits at 145 and 31 in the continental rankings. It has been a very successful trip for Wright with a first and sixth place finish at his last two outings, propelling him 160 places on the world rankings. Wright will look to recover and regroup as he prepares for the Pan American Triathlon Championships in Montevideo, Uruguay, on October 29, the first race of Wright’s 2024 Olympic qualifying campaign. (PR)