Asia Triathlon Cup: Hong Kong’s Robin Elg on podium but missed Olympics chance for Jason Ng, Bailee Brown
- City’s star duo Ng and Brown suffer in season-ending event as bad luck is added to effects of a tough itinerary
- Brown has ‘shocking swim’, according to head coach, but Elg grabs third in men’s elite race
Leading Hong Kong triathletes Jason Ng Tai-long and Bailee Brown missed opportunities to gain ground over their Olympic qualification rivals, after a “brutal” schedule took its toll at the season-ending Asia Triathlon Cup races in mainland China.
There was a third place over the standard-distance course in Xiamen on Saturday for Robin Elg, their in-form teammate and reigning Asian Under-23 champion.
Ng and Brown, both members of Hong Kong’s Asian Games bronze-medal mixed relay team, had achieved podium finishes at the high-calibre Asia Triathlon Sprint Championships in Saudi Arabia a fortnight ago.
But Ng failed to finish in Xiamen after suffering a flat tyre on the bike leg, while Brown produced strong riding and running legs yet suffered from a poor start and was seventh.
Brown, 24, confessed she was fighting fatigue after her third place in the ATC race staged in Hong Kong a week ago, while Ng, who was second in his home event, was similarly drained following an elongated campaign.
The pair opted to race for a third successive week in pursuit of Olympic points, and found it tough going.
“Bailee had a shocking swim,” head coach Andrew Wright said. “She had the third fastest run, but left herself too much to do. Jason just suffered with outright bad luck.”
Ng, 23, and Brown are both engaged in nip-and-tuck battles for Paris 2024 spots, and their respective fights with Ayan Beisenbayev and Ekaterina Shabalina are set to go right down to the May cut-off for accumulating points.
The Kazakh duo did not race this weekend, allowing Wright to adopt a “nothing ventured, nothing gained” outlook.
“A podium finish would have really helped Bailee, so it was a missed opportunity,” he said. “But the point she gained was useful, and racing three weekends in a row was brutal.”
Elg followed up successive top-10 finishes with a place on the podium this weekend.
“Robin has a lot of talent,” Wright said. “He had some health issues through Covid, but if he maintains consistency, he can be very good.”
