Having to finish the bike rout with an hour and six minutes and 55 seconds and finishing off with a 10 kilometer run for only 41 minutes and 45 seconds with a total of 1:50:50 on the Olympic Open Men Division, Matsumaru proved to be too fast and well trained to preserve his triathlon title after winning once more in this year’s Shell Rainbow Triathlon that was held at the Palau Pacific Resort. Following him is Naoki Tottori who got a time of 2:07:17 to take second place while Timohiro Murayama settled for third for his 2:26:28 time.
Other winners for the Olympic routs on different categories were, Junior Men; Youri Ito – 3:33:37; Junior Women; Marica Otto – 3:52:09; Open Women; Mami Kitamura – 2:56:49: Master Men; Satoshi Namekata (1st) 2:07:32; Scott Walsh (2nd) 2:33:41; Takahiro Sya (3rd) 2:55:39;Master Women; Naomi Mamazaki – 2:31:55;Men Senior Master (46yrs and older);Hideaki Uriu (1st) 2:27:05;Juan Guatno (2nd) 2:36:43, Mikeki Sonokawa (3rd) 2:49:50; Women Senior Master (46yrs and older); Takako Morinaga (1st) 2:35:30; Yoko Mineo (2nd) 2:46:54; Kazuko Ikeda (3rd) 3:12:55; Olympic Team Division; JICA Masters (1st) 2:23:51; 20 – 1 Ladies (2nd) 3:21:34.
On the Sprint Division the following winners were; Junior Men; Laim Bornovski (1st) 1:35:14, Telbiil August (2nd) 1:36:34, Olai Kumangai (3rd) 1:47:18; Junior Female; Osisang Chilton (1st) 1:50:37, Antja Flowers (2nd) 2:09:33; Open Men; Joynal (1st) 1:24:46, Tiger Gillham (2nd) 1:33:31, Ali Munsup (3rd) 1:55:43, Open Women; Rachel Dimitruk – 1:54:38.
The Shell Rainbow Triathlon was made possible through the unending support of Shell Palau, Palau Pacific Resort, Continental Airlines, and different association who helped in putting up the two day event namely the Belau Triathlon Federation, Palau Swimming Association, the Palau National Olympic Committee, and the KFC Triathlon Club in Japan.
